


Linchpin

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Category: Glee
Genre: Kleak-up, Kurt OT3 Bang, M/M, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:16:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 53,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puck was pretty sure that planning on marrying Rachel Berry right out of high school had been Finn's dumbest idea yet, until Finn put Rachel on a train to New York City and told Puck he was planning on enlisting in the army. That's definitely the dumbest idea ever, and Puck can't seem to talk him out of it. Maybe the combined efforts of Kurt Hummel and Noah Puckerman can shove some sense back into Finn. After all, Kurt and Puck are the only two people who seem to care about Finn's health, mental well-being, and leg not being blown off by a landmine. Initiating: Operation Saving Private Finn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Linchpin

**Author's Note:**

> Traditional/digital art for this story by the exceptionally talented [Narya](http://archiveofourown.org/works/480363) (click images for full size).
> 
> Beta'd/edited by **david_of_oz** and **Separatrix**.  <3

  


Puck, Finn thinks as he’s downing his second cherry-lime wine cooler, is full of excellent ideas and doesn’t get anywhere near enough credit for them. The pool cleaning thing out in California, that was a great idea, even if it wasn’t exactly the best plan for _Finn_. Making Finn come over to Puck’s place after leaving Rachel at the train station was an even better idea, because now Finn doesn’t have that awful sucking sort of pain in his chest. Instead he just feels numb, but in a good way, like in that movie everybody watches at parties where there’s lots of pot. He’s, like, _comfortably numb_. 

They didn’t start out drinking wine coolers. At first they were just talking about shit and Finn was wallowing in self-pity about the Rachel thing, but then he slipped up and mentioned the Army. Puck had gotten quiet then, and then he left the room and came back with wine coolers and his guitar.

“I don’t think they like Journey. Or anything but that stupid song about cannons,” Puck is saying, and then he stops and peers at Finn. “Another one?” he asks, picking up another wine cooler and holding it out to Finn.

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Finn says, taking the wine cooler. “You sure your mom’s not gonna be pissed we’re drinking all of these?”

Puck waves his hand dismissively. “I can replace ‘em before she gets back. She took Alexis up to my aunt’s in Toledo and now Ma’s going to some finding–yourself retreat on the lake or some shit. See, dude.” Puck stops and picks up a wine cooler for himself. “How’re you feeling?”

“Do you have any other flavor besides this cherry-lime stuff?” Finn asks. “It’s, like, really, really sweet.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Puck nods, and he grabs a different bottle and squints at the label. “Pomegranate raspberry?”

“Sure. That looks less… pink.” Finn unscrews the top on the pomegranate wine cooler and takes a sip. It’s still pretty much exactly the same amount of sweet, but at least it’s not cherry-lime sweet, so it’ll work. “This is awesome. We should do this more, now that we’re single and don’t have women yelling at us for being dumbasses.”

“You mean now that you got your balls back?” Puck snorts. “Speak for yourself, no one’s been yelling at me for being a dumbass for _months_.”

“She didn’t really yell,” Finn says, because he realises it sounds like he’s talking bad about Rachel, and he doesn’t want to talk bad about Rachel. Really, he kinda doesn’t want to talk about Rachel at all right now, because he was just starting to feel a little bit better about the train thing. “Anyway, this is still awesome.”

“We need, like. A bonfire,” Puck suggests. “Except the last time I built a fire in the backyard, Mrs. Buchanan next door called the fire department. Your house, maybe.”

“Yeah. That would be badass. I don’t think Burt and mom would care. Maybe it would make my mom stop crying. She’s crying a lot over this Army thing,” Finn confesses. “She’ll feel better once she sees I’m not gonna screw it up, I think.”

“Dude. That’s a real dick move, making Carole cry.” Puck shakes his head. “That one better?” he asks, pointing to the wine cooler, already hefting another one.

“Dude, I already feel like a dick about it, okay?” Finn frowns as he takes another wine cooler. “But I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do. She’ll understand once it’s closer to me going, maybe.”

Puck hums but doesn’t answer, just watches Finn drinking the wine cooler. “Hot down there,” he finally says. “Real hot.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ve got air conditioning in Georgia, dude,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Anyway, I won’t be there forever. I might end up in, like, Alaska or France or something.”

“Right,” Puck says, a little flatly. “You wanna watch a movie? Or have you forgotten how to hold your alcohol, too?”

“I can hold my alcohol just fine,” Finn insists. “I feel fine. Yeah, we can watch a movie or, I dunno. You wanna play some video games?”

“It’s been like, months since we watched _Iron Man 2_ , dude,” Puck argues, and then Puck stands up, messing with the DVD player before sitting back down and handing Finn another wine cooler without a word. 

“Can’t ever go wrong with _Iron Man 2_ ,” Finn agrees. “Sucks that _Avengers_ won’t be out on DVD before I leave. Maybe somebody can send it to me.”

“You’re no Captain America,” Puck retorts, sprawling across the sofa as the movie begins. 

“Yeah, and you’re no Thor,” Finn says. “Now we’ve got that out of the way.”

“Yeah, I’d look pretty dumb as a blond.” Puck laughs. “And I’m too tall to be Tony Stark.”

“I’m probably tall enough and dumb enough to be the Hulk, though,” Finn says. “Couldn’t manage the Bruce Banner parts, though, so I guess I’ll just stick with being me and figure out some normal hero stuff to do instead. I’m not super enough for superhero stuff.”

“Oh, like Natasha.” Puck grins and moves his hands in front of his chest. “You’d need some enhancement first.”

“Then you’ll have to be Hawkeye and we’ll go blow some shit up. They were the best bros in the movie, dude, so we’d have to be them,” Finn says. He leans his head back on the sofa and closes his eyes for a minute. All those wine coolers must be kicking in, because he feels a little dizzy, sort of sleepy, and super relaxed. All the worried, sad feelings are gone.

“Bros. Right.” Puck sounds amused. “That’s a nice proposal, Finn-tasha. Damn. That doesn’t sound as good as Finnessa. Natash-inn? Nope.”

“Black Finn-dow,” Finn says. “Which I guess makes you Puckeye, which sorta rocks.”

“Puckeye,” Puck repeats. “Yeah, Puckeye’s pretty damn badass. And definitely better than Hawkpuck or something dumb.” Puck pokes Finn’s side. “You getting tired, dude?”

“I’m just relaxing. Gotta do it while I can, right?”

“I can get you my mom’s eyemask,” Puck laughs. “Or the white noise machine. I don’t think it really works though, she’s all the time yelling over it.”

“Dude, I’m watching the movie. I can’t watch the movie with an eyemask on. Anyway, I’m not tired, I said. I’m _relaxed_.” Finn rolls his head to the side to glare at Puck, who doesn’t look like he really cares too much about it. “I drank, like, a _bunch_ of wine coolers. I’m relaxed.”

“Yeah, she says that’s what they’re for. You want another one?” Puck shrugs and looks inquisitively at Finn. “You’re not exactly tiny.”

“Nope. I’m not tiny. That’s a high school graduate level of observation right there,” Finn snorts.

Puck shoves Finn’s shoulder with both hands. “Aww, fuck you, asshole.”

Finn shoves Puck back, but only with one hand, since the other one’s still holding a wine cooler. “Fuck you. You’re the one who said it. I can’t help that I’m a sasquatch.”

“Lima’s very own,” Puck says, suddenly more agreeable, and he drops one arm from the back of the sofa onto Finn’s shoulders, squeezing one with his hand. “Yep, definite sasquatch shoulders. Shoulda dressed you up in fur and sent you out in state parks at dawn and dusk.”

“I hope they make uniforms big enough to fit me,” Finn says, sliding down on the sofa enough to rest his head on Puck’s shoulder. He’s suddenly tired—or _relaxed_ or whatever—and it feels nice to kick back and flop on Puck like he did when they were kids. 

Puck mutters something under his breath and doesn’t say anything else for five or ten minutes. Finn keeps his head on Puck’s shoulder and breathes slowly and watches the movie. 

“Should dump your ass in bed before you fall asleep on me,” Puck says, breaking the almost–silence. “I don’t want to watch this movie over and over while you sleep.”

“Yeah,” Finn responds. “I’m kinda tired, I guess.” He tries to stand up a little too fast, and the world sort of tips, making him wobble on shaky legs. “Shit, I guess that was maybe one too many wine coolers, dude.”

“Slow down,” Puck fusses at him. “Go piss.” Puck pats his shoulder twice before pushing him in the direction of the bathroom. Finn stumbles into the bathroom to do his business and then stumbles down the hall to Puck’s room. Puck’s sitting on the bed with his guitar when Finn gets in there. 

“Hey,” Finn says. “Is it guitar time? I thought it was sleep time.”

Puck pauses in the middle of ‘give peace a chance’ and looks up, his fake dumb face in place. “You can sleep. It’s like, uh. Lullabyes or something.” Without waiting for an answer, Puck looks back down and starts playing “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

“Hippie songs?” Finn asks. He unzips his jeans and kicks them off, standing there in his boxers and T-shirt. “You still got the sleeping bag in your closet?”

“Nope,” Puck replies in between verses. “Alexis took it up to Toledo. Gonna have to crash on the bed.”

“Oh. Shoulda warned me, I could’ve gotten mine or something,” Finn says. “Now I’m gonna sasquatch your whole bed.” Still, it’s not much of a protest, because the bed is way better than a sleeping bag, and he follows it up by flopping down on the bed, rolling onto his side with his back to Puck so there’s plenty of room for Puck to keep sitting there playing his music. 

“Yeti. I think you’re more a yeti,” Puck announces as he finishes the song, and then he starts playing “What’s Going On.”

“That’s pretty,” Finn mumbles into Puck’s pillow. “I’m not a yeti.”

Puck doesn’t answer, just keeps playing and singing, but one of Puck’s feet starts tickling at the back of Finn’s legs, slowly moving up. Finn laughs and swats at him half-heartedly. Puck grins as he sings and moves his foot higher. When the song finishes, Puck sets his guitar down and laughs. “I have very talented feet. We’ve been friends for how long, and you didn’t have a clue, did you?”

“Were you playing that song with your feet just now?” Finn asks, the words slurring together. “That’s cool. It sounded good.”

“Guess you’ll never know, drunk boy,” Puck says cheerfully, and the bed dips as Puck lies down next to him. “Have to keep your eyes open to find out.” There’s a strange noise behind Finn just as Puck finishes talking. 

“’M not drunk. Just sleepy,” Finn insists, and Puck laughs again, his hand suddenly sliding into Finn’s boxers and wrapping around Finn’s cock. Puck’s palm is hot and damp, and Finn groans and pushes forward against Puck’s hand before he realizes, no, wait a minute. This is not normal. “Puck?” he forces out. “What?”

“Shush,” Puck says, his hand still moving. “Just giving you a hand.” He snorts, like he’s amused at his own joke. 

“But you’re not—”

Puck snorts again. “I’m whatever I want to be. You don’t want me to stop, though, do you?”

Finn’s dimly aware that the right answer’s supposed to be ‘yes, stop’, but he’s so comfortable, and Puck’s hand feels so good, and so he just says, “No” and moves his hips forward into Puck’s touch. After a little while, Puck’s hand moves faster on Finn’s cock, and Finn rocks his hips forward and back in time to Puck’s movements, and neither one of them says anything, barely making any noise other than heavy breathing. 

When Finn starts to get close, he says, “Puck?” because he wants to make sure Puck’s serious about where this is going before there’s something they’re both maybe going to feel weird about tomorrow. Puck grunts and his hand tightens around Finn, moving a little faster. Finn bucks his hips and comes all over Puck’s fingers with a quiet moan. Puck keeps his hand on Finn’s cock until Finn’s completely still, then he pulls his hand out of Finn’s boxers. Finn can hear him wiping it on the side of the bed. 

“Stay,” Puck whispers. “Don’t go ruin your fucking life, you dumbass.”

“Gotta go,” Finn mutters, sinking down into the mattress. “Nothing else for me anymore.” If Puck answers him, Finn doesn’t hear, because he’s asleep pretty much immediately after that.

  


“Kurt Hummel, we have a problem.” Puck tugs at the hair at the front of his mohawk and waits for the phone to at least crackle, something to indicate Kurt’s still on the other end.

“Noah Puckerman,” Kurt finally sighs into the phone. “It’s 7:30 on a Sunday morning. To what do I owe the dubious pleasure?”

“I tried everything I can think of,” Puck blurts out. “But he’s still fucking joining the fucking Army, so he’s going to get brainwashed and then he’ll end up with a wooden leg after the plastic one melts.” He looks around his bedroom and frowns. Finn’s still passed out, drunk or hungover, and if it was a year earlier, Puck could make sure Finn didn’t join the Army by just taking pictures of the two of them together naked or something. It’s 2012, though, so no dice.

“What does a plastic leg have to do with any— wait. _What_?” Puck hears a brief clattering noise, like Kurt dropped the phone, and then a frustrated huff of air before Kurt says, “He’s actually serious about that? I thought Carole talked him out of it! That’s insane.”

“ _Right_ ,” Puck agrees, relieved that someone else seems to find the idea as ridiculous as Puck does. “I told him they’d brainwash him, and crush his soul—I told him they’d probably not let him sing classic rock in the shower—and then he’ll step on a fucking landmine and lose a leg. He thought it was _funny_! We’ve got to do something.”

“Okay. Okay, let’s think about this for a moment,” Kurt says. “First, don’t panic.”

“He’s supposed to leave at the end of the month!”

“That’s twenty days from now,” Kurt explains calmly. He’s too damn calm, actually, like twenty days is a lot longer than _less than three weeks_. “Look, I agree that it’s insane. It’s a terrible plan, and I think he’s making a horrible mistake, but we have to both acknowledge that he’s at least marginally an adult and has the right to make stupid decisions.”

“ _Now_ you want him to make his own decisions? Sam told me that you stopped Finn from walking out of the house with one black Con and one green one, like… two weeks ago?” Puck shakes his head and lowers his voice. “C’mon, you and I both know he’s not making good decisions right now.”

“Oh, I didn’t say we had to let him actually follow through on his decision,” Kurt says. “I just want us both on the same page here. Finn has a right to do whatever he wants and we can’t legally stop him or physically restrain him, so that means we have to do a very good job of convincing him that we’re right and he’s wrong.”

“Well, I’m really not averse to some alegality. Or illegality.” Puck shrugs, even though Kurt can’t see him. “But I guess we can try it your way first. I’ll keep some rope in the back of my truck just in case, though.” Puck sighs heavily.

“We need to establish some kind of actual step-by-step plan,” Kurt announces. “You and I should meet up, make some notes, and decide on the best possible way of approaching this, ideally with at least one or two backup plans. I suggest we meet this afternoon at the Lima Bean. Write down any ideas you have and bring those.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Puck agrees. “I’m gonna take this week to try and, uh.” Puck looks at Finn’s back again. “Talk some sense into him. While we figure out a plan.”

“Don’t let him know we’re working together on this,” Kurt says. “He gets very touchy when he thinks people are talking about him behind his back, and the last thing we need to do is make him feel like we’re ganging up on him, even if that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

Puck laughs, then quickly quiets. “Yeah, well, sometimes the dumbass needs people to gang up on him.” He stops. “Wait, what time this afternoon?” It’s not that Puck has big plans, but there’s no need to sit at the Lima Bean for hours waiting for the right part of the afternoon. 

“Four. No, four-thirty,” Kurt corrects himself, sighing. “I’m having a late lunch with Blaine to discuss our summer plans. Considering my plans were originally to sort through my wardrobe and pack for New York…”

“You’ve got a lot of clothes, dude, but even you wouldn’t take all summer to sort through them anyway,” Puck says, because he’s not really sure what else to say. None of it makes much sense, but Kurt’s not whining about it like he’s pretty sure Rachel would be, if things were reversed. 

Then again, Kurt wouldn’t have tried to defer a year for his boyfriend, either.

“No. That wouldn’t have taken all summer,” Kurt says, finally, a sharper tone to his voice. “I’ll see you at four-thirty at the Lima Bean, then.” With that, he ends the call. Puck pulls the phone away from his ear, looks at it, and shrugs, setting it back down. Time to go see what his mom left for him to eat for breakfast, anyway.

After Puck finds the Eggo waffles and preheats the oven, he throws away all the empty wine cooler bottles, and pours out the two half-bottles he didn’t finish drinking. Once the Eggos are in the oven, he wanders back to his bedroom, where Finn is sitting up, looking both hungover and really confused. 

“Morning,” Puck says.

“Uh. Hey.” Finn rubs his eyes with the back of his hand and squints at the sunlight filtering in the window. “I think a fruit basket died in my mouth.”

“Just half of one. We didn’t even get to the piña colada flavor.”

“Thank god,” Finn mutters. “I think if my mouth tasted like coconut I might puke right now.”

Puck grins and picks up his guitar. “If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain, if you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain.” Puck stops singing. “Shall I continue?”

Finn waves one hand at him, looking green around the gills, then suddenly stands and bolts out of the room. The sound of puking echoes from the bathroom and into the hall, followed by two flushes and the water running in the sink. Finn returns to the room, pale and droopy, and sinks back down onto Puck’s bed. 

“Are you trying to say my singing makes you puke?” Puck says, trying hard to frown instead of laugh. “Anyway, there’s Eggos in the oven, dude.”

Finn cringes at the mention of the Eggos, then he makes that stupid–face like he does when he’s trying to remember something or figure something out. “Hey, dude? Last night—”

“You’re not going to freak out on me are you?” Puck asks, rolling his eyes. “And your total count was six, if you’re wondering.”

“What?” Finn looks even more confused. “No, I’m not gonna freak out. I mean, I don’t think so.” The stupid–face intensifies and Finn shakes his head. “Okay, maybe a little bit. I’ll wait to freak out until I get home, alright?”

“Yeah, you’ll have to wait until I drive you home.” Puck snorts. “And I’m eating first. You want to shower?”

Finn looks at himself and sniffs his shirt, nose wrinkling. “Yeah. I think that’s a good plan.”

“Help yourself,” Puck nods. “You know where the T-shirts are.”

Finn nods and rifles through Puck’s T-shirt drawer, pulling out one of the bigger ones. “I’ll just, uh.”

Puck nods again. “Yeah, just make sure you don’t accidentally use Alexis’ new shampoo. It smells like the locker room, I swear.” 

Finn looks sheepish as he shuffles off to the bathroom, Puck’s T-shirt in hand. Puck shrugs and heads back to the kitchen as the oven dings. He’d put enough in for Finn to have a few, but Finn’s loss is Puck’s gain, the way he figures it. He pulls the syrup from the refrigerator and sits down at the small table with a huge pile of waffles and grins, eating happily while the water runs in the bathroom. 

Puck’s just about to put the last waffle on his plate when Finn emerges from the shower, looking damp and really ridiculously pitiful, so Puck puts the waffle on the plate but then slides it towards him. “Here. Eat something, at least.”

Finn grimaces, but he sits down and at least picks at the waffle with a fork. “What time is it?” he asks, after he’s choked down a few bites. 

“Maybe 8:30?” Puck guesses. “You late for something?”

“My, uh. My freakout, I think.”

Puck snorts, trying not to laugh, and stands up, putting the syrup back and turning off the oven. His ma’d be pissed if she came back from her getting–her–life–together retreat and the shitplex had burned down. Plus Mrs. Buchanan would probably stab him with her garden rake. 

“Yeah, fair enough. I’ll go get some shoes and I can drive you back onto the right side of the tracks.” Puck goes back into the bedroom and crams his feet in the first pair of shoes he can find, straightening his bed while he’s in there, and pockets his phone. He figures Finn’s entitled to a nice private freak-out, since his memory’s probably a little hazy, too. When Puck gets back to the kitchen, Finn’s finished with the waffle, and Puck nods his head towards the door. “C’mon, dude. Before I start singing ‘Margaritaville’ for you.”

“Pleasegodno,” Finn whines, following Puck to the door. “Anything but that.”

  


Everyone in the house is way too loud, which is saying something, since the only people who are in the house are him and Kurt, and Kurt’s in his room with the door shut and music playing quietly. It’s still too loud, and Finn’s own feet are too loud walking down the hall, and his door is too loud when he opens his door. The bottle full of Tylenol sounds like a bottle of freaking gunshots when he shakes some pills into his hand and the faucet sounds like… something really loud that’s water. Thinking with a hangover is hard.

Finn curls up on his bed with his glass of water, takes his pills, and then tries to decide the best way to go about having his freakout. Any of the obvious freakout–type responses require more energy or make more noise than he’s up to at the moment, so he ends up just sitting there, repeating _Puck touched my dick. PUCK touched my dick. Puck touched my DICK_ over and over in his brain. 

He waits for full-blown panic, but it doesn’t happen, and then he waits to get mad, and that doesn’t happen either, so then he decides, well, fuck it, guess the freakout’s done. He puts down his glass of water, pulls his pillow over his head, and closes his eyes. Everything will feel better after a nap and he can have another go at the freakout then. 

Finn’s one hundred percent correct about the nap being just the ticket to a better freakout, because the very first thing he does when he wakes up is sit up in his bed and says, “Shit! He gave me the Quinn Fabray Treatment!”

Of course, that does make Finn wonder, for starters, _why_ Puck would do something like that, and then he has to figure out whether he’s mad at Puck for trying it or himself for falling for it. Or both. Or possibly neither, since Finn’s pretty sure it felt awesome, but… No, no, he definitely does need to be mad at one or both of them. 

What Finn needs is an objectified third party who can look at the situation rationally—hopefully without needing all the details—and help Finn decide who he’s supposed to be mad at. He crosses the hall to Kurt’s room and knocks on the door. “Hey, Kurt? Are you in there?”

The music stops a few seconds later, and Kurt opens the door, head tilted to the side. “Oh, you’re home.”

“I was home a while ago, but everything was too loud,” Finn explains. “So I had to take a nap.”

“Ah.” Kurt looks like he’s considering something for a moment, and opens his mouth to talk, but then closes it and shakes his head. “Did you want to come in?” he finally asks.

“Uh, yeah. I sort needed your objectified opinion about something, anyway,” Finn says, walking into Kurt’s room. He stands there in the middle of the rug, not sure where he’s supposed to sit. He’s never really sure where he’s supposed to sit in Kurt’s room, because he’s too big for most of the furniture.

“Objectified? Oh. Objective.” Kurt shrugs. “Very well. Have a seat,” he adds, gesturing towards the bed and taking a seat himself at his desk. “What about?”

Finn sits and then moves a little further over on the bed, and then clears his throat, and then picks at Kurt’s bedspread. Kurt raises his eyebrow in a sort of get–on–with–it look, so Finn just launches straight into it.

“So, what if… what if somebody is hanging out with somebody, right? And there’s, well. Okay, let me start over from the beginning,” Finn says. “So, I know this guy. You following me so far?”

“You know a guy—actually, you know several, but this is about one specific one—who was hanging out with someone else. Correct?”

“Right, yeah. Exactly!” Finn nods at Kurt, who sort of shakes his head. “Alright, so the guy I know, he was hanging out with this other guy. Wait, no, we’ll say it was a girl. Is that okay? We’ll say the second guy was a girl, okay?”

“There’s a guy and a drag queen. Got it.” Kurt smirks at him. 

“What? No! There weren’t any drag queens, dude. Just a guy and a girl. And one of them gives the other one of them, like, a _lot_ of wine coolers, and then the other one of them— no, wait, it was the same one. Then the same one of them, maybe…” Finn sighs. “Okay, you know, this really doesn’t sound right, even to me. I guess I’m just asking, how drunk do you have to be for fooling around to not count?”

“Did anyone say no?” is Kurt’s first response. 

Finn thinks about it really hard just to be sure, but he has to admit, “No. Nobody said no.”

“Did both parties… finish?” Kurt asks, not quite meeting Finn’s eyes. 

“Not, uh,” Finn says, feeling his face turn red. “Not as far as I know. Or, uh, heard about.”

“Hmm. Did the one who initiated finish, or was it the recipient of said attentions?” 

“The who the wha— _Jeez_ , Kurt! Nosy much!”

“If the initiator came,” Kurt says calmly, “and not the other party, then no. It doesn’t ‘count’. Someone just got used. Reverse it, and I would argue that yes, it ‘counts’, at the bare minimum on one side, and probably for both.”

“Oh. Well. Crap.” Finn falls backwards onto the bed with a loud thump. “So, which one of them should I—I mean, the person, the guy I know—feel mad at, then?”

“Is it necessary to be mad at someone?” Kurt asks, doing his head tilt thing. “No one said no. Someone came. What exactly is the issue?”

“Well, but what if, I dunno, _Tina_ , maybe. What if Tina gave you lots of wine coolers and then touched your— _you know_?” Finn says. “You’d be mad, probably, right?”

“I don’t think I’d get off, Finn, no matter how many wine coolers this version of Tina plied me with. So while I’d be quite surprised, I think she’d be disappointed.”

“Dude,” Finn says. “Dude, seriously. First, don’t say ‘get off’. Second, I mean. If it felt good, and you were drunk, and, like, your eyes were closed and you couldn’t see her? You seriously think you wouldn’t?”

“Girls’ hands feel different,” Kurt points out. “Girls smell different. Even if she only said a few words, I’d hear the difference. I really don’t think I would, no.” Kurt shrugs. “Of course, the only time I’ve been truly drunk, I didn’t want anyone to touch me, period, either, so.”

Finn sighs loudly. “So, you don’t think anybody should be mad, then?”

Kurt shakes his head. “No. If your acquaintance is firmly against any possibility of a repeat performance, then I suggest fewer wine coolers in the future.”

“Okay, I’ll pass that along, then,” Finn says. “So, uh. What are you doing today?”

“Meeting Blaine for a late lunch, and then doing some… research,” Kurt answers quickly. “I should be home for dinner, though. Did you want to order something? I don’t feel like cooking anything complicated.”

“Yeah, me either. Feel like cooking anything complicated. Or at all,” Finn says. “Let me know when you’re heading back and I’ll call in some pizza or Chinese or something.”

“That sounds good,” Kurt nods. “I’ll send you a text.”

  


Kurt walks into Panera and proceeds straight to the counter, ordering his sandwich and soup and collecting his drink before he looks around to find his boyfriend. Blaine’s seated at a table with his strawberry, poppyseed and chicken salad, a cup of hot tea, and a stack of sheet music and songbooks with titles like _AWESOME SONGS OF THE 70s!_ and _Disco Never Dies_. He looks up as Kurt approaches the table.

“Kurt! You finally made it! I was starting to get worried.”

Kurt tilts his head and smiles. “It’s only now one, Blaine.”

“Is it?” Blaine looks at this watch and shakes his head. “I guess I got here earlier than I thought. So… let’s start talking community theatre! They’re holding auditions for _Bye Bye Birdie_ at the Encore in two weeks and,” he looks down at a neatly typed list in front of him, “the Blankenhurst Company is doing a traveling 70s musical revue. It’s going all over Ohio and Indiana. They’re auditioning a week from Tuesday.”

Kurt isn’t sure if this news is supposed to make him excited or horribly, horribly depressed. A life of auditioning for community theatre productions and regional traveling productions, even for just a year, suddenly seems unbearably long and drab. “A traveling 70s revue,” Kurt repeats, and then, mercifully, his name is called at the pick-up counter. He collects his soup and sandwich and sits back down across from Blaine. “Travel costs, though,” he can’t help but say.

“Covered by the company, if you have a solo,” Blaine says. “And think of what it could add to your resume for next year, Kurt!”

“Blaine, I’d never heard of the Blankethurt Company—”

“ _Blankenhurst_ ,” Blaine corrects him. “Jed Blankenhurst is an old friend of Cooper’s from Oakview Prep. Cooper pulled some strings for us to get us an audition. Kurt, you have to, Cooper did us a huge favor.”

“The fact remains,” Kurt continues, “that I had not heard of this company until approximately five minutes ago, so I am uncertain as to how much such a role would enhance my resume.” Kurt takes a bite of his sandwich and chews thoughtfully.

Blaine looks and sounds apologetic when he speaks. “But Kurt, outside of glee, you don’t really _have_ that extensive of a resume. McKinley didn’t provide a lot of opportunities for performance.”

Kurt takes another bite of his sandwich while he composes his face. Part of him wants to point out that when he did have an opportunity, it was more or less handed on a silver platter to Blaine. Another part of him wants to remind Blaine that he’s his boyfriend, not his career coach. Most of his brain, however, is devoted to thinking up ways to keep Finn from joining the Army – well, that, and the very interesting conversation he had with Finn earlier in the morning. 

“Regardless,” Kurt says after he swallows, “Padding it with community theatre roles is not necessarily a winning strategy. Perhaps I should stalk the Dean for the next several months.”

Blaine reaches out and takes Kurt’s hand, making what is probably meant to be soulful eye contact. “Now we’ll get a chance to go to New York together,” Blaine says. “That’s what we both said we wished for, isn’t it? I’m not going to say this is a blessing, because I know you’re disappointed, but…” he trails off, frowning. “What’s wrong? There’s something bothering you.”

Kurt sighs and squeezes Blaine’s hand. “Finn… is still planning to join the Army.”

Blaine squeezes back and smiles sympathetically. “You know, it’s not the worst thing in the world. This might be a good opportunity for him, since his performing arts career didn’t take off.”

Kurt pulls his hand back a little too forcefully. “There are a million and one options along the spectrum between those two extremes, Blaine,” he huffs. “You’ve _met_ Finn, Blaine. Can you really imagine him thriving in the Army?”

“Honestly?” Blaine asks, looking at Kurt expectantly. Kurt nods, and Blaine continues, “Yes, I can. He’s athletic, he follows directions well, and… well, he’s not academic. There’s nothing wrong with that, either, but he’s just not like you, Kurt. Maybe the Army is exactly what he needs.”

“He’s a klutz,” Kurt insists, “and he’s far too gentle for them. It will— it’ll _crush his soul_ , Blaine,” Kurt says, echoing Puck’s words from earlier. “I’m not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea, you know.”

“I know. Carole wasn’t thrilled about it, either. Your dad seemed supportive, though,” Blaine points out. “And don’t you think ‘crushing his soul’ is a little melodramatic, even for us?”

Kurt resists the urge to immediately protest that he was just quoting Puck. “I wasn’t referring to Carole or Dad, actually,” Kurt says, beginning to eat his soup. “Puck, Mike, I’m fairly certain Tina thinks it’s a bit odd, at the very least.”

“Have you talked to Finn about why he wants to do this?” Blaine spears another bite of his salad and gestures with his fork as he talks. “It seemed to me like he’d thought it through at least reasonably well, Kurt. Even if you don’t like his decision, if you really care about him, don’t you think you should respect it?”

Kurt tilts his head at Blaine and then shakes it. “No. And frankly, you and I must have different definitions of ‘reasonably well’.”

“Not everybody has the dad you grew up with, Kurt,” Blaine says, taking Kurt’s hand again and running his thumb along Kurt’s knuckles. “If this is what makes him feel like he has a connection with his father, maybe he should explore it, even if the rest of us can’t understand his choice. In a few years he might be ready to move on to something else. It’s not a lifetime commitment.”

“It is if he’s permanently injured or killed!” Kurt exclaims. Puck’s right; Finn _would_ manage to melt a prosthetic limb. Kurt pulls his hand away from Blaine for a second time. “I know you mean well, Blaine, but you’re looking at this— you’re looking at this like you’re still at Dalton, pitying the public school kids!”

“Kurt, that’s not fair,” Blaine argues. He starts to reach for Kurt’s hand again, but stops. “I’m not the one looking at the Army like it’s somehow not good enough for Finn.”

“No, you’re looking at Finn like he’s _only_ good enough for the Army,” Kurt counters. 

“What else is he going to do with his life, besides work at your dad’s shop?” Blaine says.

“And what, exactly,” Kurt says icily, “is wrong with working at my dad’s shop?” He pushes his chair back and stands. “I’m sorry that the Hudson-Hummel brothers don’t have their entire lives planned a week after graduating from high school.” He picks up his trash and tosses it into the garbage can with a satisfying thud, then turns to get a refill of his drink. Blaine scurries to follow him.

“That’s not what I mean, Kurt. There’s nothing wrong with your dad’s shop, but that’s not the same as planning some kind of future. It’s just what’s available to him and expected of him,” Blaine says. “You at least had a reasonable chance of getting into NYADA. I’m not sure Finn even believed he would be accepted at Pace. You have real goals. You have real dreams. Finn doesn’t seem to have any of that. At least the Army’s something he picked out for himself to pursue.”

“Clearly, you and I have experienced the last several months from differing perspectives,” Kurt says tightly. “As it happens, I need to go anyway. I have some errands to run and research to do.”

“My afternoon’s clear. I’ll come with you,” Blaine offers. 

“No!” Kurt answers, a little too sharply. It’s clear Blaine wouldn’t be supportive of Puck and Kurt’s attempt to change Finn’s mind, and Kurt needs quiet to evaluate what the options even are. “No, thank you. They’re very boring. You should practice for your audition next week.”

“If you’re sure,” Blaine says, sighing. “I’m sorry that you’re so upset about Finn. It’s good that the two of you have such a great relationship.”

“Thank you,” Kurt says more quietly, “but I’m sure.” He pastes a smile on his face as best he can. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening at the Lima Bean?”

“Absolutely!” Blaine leans up and plants a small kiss on Kurt’s cheek. “Have fun with your errands.”

  


Puck pushes open the door to the Lima Bean at 4:10, folded piece of paper clutched in his left hand, and he goes straight for the counter to order a coffee. Waiting on his coffee only takes about two minutes, though, so Puck finds a table and pulls out his phone, turning off the sound so he can pretend he’s doing something important instead of trying to beat the high score on Angry Birds that Artie put on his phone while they were in Chicago.

At 4:18, a voice behind Puck says, “Wine coolers, Puck? Really?”

Puck quits Angry Birds and looks up, a little guiltily. “What? My mom likes wine coolers. Something about old guys and support. Easier than finding someone to buy beer.”

Kurt hums to himself, looking amused. “No wonder you couldn’t convince him. You have _one_ move, don’t you?”

“Hey!” Puck protests, then frowns. He has to admit Kurt might be right. “Damn.” He picks up the folded paper and flattens it out. “But I made a list!”

Kurt holds his hand out expectantly, and when Puck doesn’t hand over the list right away, he says, “Well?”

“Where’s your list?” Puck says. “We can swap.”

Kurt pulls a carefully tri-folded piece of paper from his satchel and hands it to Puck, snatching Puck’s list from his hand. “What’s this one you marked through?”

“Uh.” Puck looks up from Kurt’s list and frowns. “I just realized he wasn’t that gullible. And he lives with you, so. He probably watches the news by accident sometimes.”

“Uh-huh. Why are ‘Jack and Coke’ and ‘cocktails’ on your list?” Kurt asks, then shakes his head. “You know what? Maybe we’ll skip explaining those, shall we?”

Puck grins sheepishly. “I just thought…”

“One move, Puckerman. You have one move.”

“It’s not _just_ wine coolers, you know,” Puck protests.

“Clearly not,” Kurt mutters under his breath, raising his eyebrows. “Well, do you see anything on my list that looks doable?”

“I think faking your own death is a little over the top.” Puck shrugs. “Sorry, but it’s true. College isn’t bad, but Finn’s not going to just take random classes. Not without some kinda ‘purpose’.”

“‘Investigate alternative careers’ is good, too, but he’s somewhat limited by his lack of degree or skills,” Kurt points out. “Maybe we should combine those two.”

Puck nods. “Yeah. But we’re gonna have to like… Figure it all out for him. He’s not gonna go through pamphlets, not when he’s all convinced he’s supposed to go to the fucking _Army_.”

“Hmm. That’s true. He’s going to need more than a little handholding,” Kurt agrees. “We can’t just present him with the idea in its entirety, either, or he’ll feel backed into a corner. We have to somehow simultaneously figure out his entire career path _and_ make him feel involved in the process. That’s… just totally easy,” he adds, with a note of frustration.

“Sure. A piece of cake,” Puck agrees, smirking a little. “We can each try some of the other things on our lists. _Not_ dying.”

“That one was mutually beneficial. I could help Finn _and_ put it on my resume!” Kurt says. “We can’t drug him and take him to Mexico, either, by the way. I’m not necessarily ruling out kidnapping, but I’m not slipping Finn the mickey.”

“Chloroform? It’s old school,” Puck suggests.

“Do we really want to addle his brains?” Kurt asks. “More. Addle them more?”

“Damn. I was gonna try making it myself out of the pool chemicals, too.” Puck shrugs. “Oh well. Lost opportunity, I guess.”

Kurt’s eyebrows rise up towards his hairline. “Yes, lost. Let’s keep it that way. So, reconvene… tomorrow? Same time?”

Puck purses his lips and then nods. “Yeah, I should be done with all the pools by then.”

“Kindly avoid getting yourself punched while working through your list,” Kurt says. “Even Finn’s bound to catch on to that one move sooner or later.”

“But more than likely later,” Puck points out with a shrug. “I’m probably good for awhile yet.”

“Oh, this is going to go swimmingly,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes. “No way it can fail.”

  


Finn keeps awkwardly patting Kurt on the back, because he’s not really sure what else he can do. It’s cool that Kurt cares enough about him to get this worked up over the Army thing, but now Finn just feels twice as guilty and his shirt’s all wet from the crying.

“There, there,” Finn repeats. “It’s gonna be okay, seriously.”

Kurt’s breath hitches. “Not if you’re—” He takes a shaky breath and a little sob escapes. “Hurt, Finn. I don’t want you to be hurt. Not physically or—” Another sob. “Mentally.”

Kurt didn’t even get worked up like this when Burt was in the hospital or when he didn’t get into NYADA, and Finn’s touched that Kurt loves him that much or whatever’s making him act like this, but he’s sort of got no idea what he’s supposed to say or do. Luckily, the doorbell rings, and Finn pats Kurt on the back one more time. “I’m, uh. Gonna go get that. Just… splash some water on your face or something?”

Kurt sniffs and straightens, wiping his hand over his eyes. “Okay.” 

Finn opens the door and there’s Puck, standing on the front stoop with a big grin on his face. He has his guitar in one hand, a video game case between two of his fingers on that same hand, and a grocery bag in the other. Great, because freakout number two is the perfect way to cap off an evening of Kurt crying all over him. Finn is starting to question whether everybody in his life is losing their minds, or whether it’s maybe just him.

“Uh. Hey?” Finn says. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

“I got bored,” Puck says with a shrug. “Figured your house was like, the bachelor pad of Lima, right?”

“Well, Sam’s in Kentucky and Kurt was just crying all over me.”

Puck looks like he’s going to laugh for a split second, then he shakes his head. “See? You need me to liven up the place.”

“I don’t wanna talk about the Army anymore today, okay?” Finn says, stepping out of the way for Puck to walk in. “You want to, uh. Hang out here in the living room and watch a movie? Maybe we can see if Kurt wants to watch something, too?”

“Sure. I brought refreshments,” Puck says brightly, setting down all of his stuff in the floor. “Oh, and I brought that new zombie game! You said last week you wanted to try it out.”

Yeah. Last week, which was before _last night_ and the pretty–sure–that–was–a–handjob at Puck’s place. “Oh, yeah. Well, system’s up in my room, still,” Finn says. “Which I guess you probably remember. Wait, you didn’t bring more wine coolers?”

“Nah, figured you didn’t want to wake up with fruit basket mouth again.” Puck bends over the grocery bag and holds up two bottles almost triumphantly – one of Coke, and one of Jack Daniels. 

“That’s great. That’s just, uh…” Finn makes himself grin. “We should offer some to Kurt. Might stop him crying.”

“Yeah, sure,” Puck agrees, walking towards the kitchen. “You want yours with more Jack or more Coke?”

“Coke. Mostly Coke is good. Just, you know, don’t even feel like you have to put any Jack in there or anything.”

Puck nods. “Sure, sure.” He pulls out three glasses and mixes one before handing it to Finn. “Here, take that up to Kurt.”

Finn takes the glass and carries it up to Kurt’s room. He taps on the door. “Hey, Kurt? Can I come in?”

“Yes,” Kurt’s voice calls a few seconds later, and then he opens the door, looking pretty well put together considering how much he was crying. “What is it?”

“Puck’s here. He brought Jack Daniels,” Finn says, holding out the glass.

“I… see.” Kurt accepts the glass and sniffs it once. “Tell him I said thank you.”

“We’re gonna play that new zombie-shooting game. You wanna join us?” Finn asks, hopefully. “It’s not super gory, I don’t think.”

“Mmm, no thank you,” Kurt says, taking a drink of the Jack and Coke. “I need to give Blaine a call.”

“Well, uh. You have fun with that. I’m glad you’re feeling better now,” Finn says. “If you get bored, you can just come on over to my room and play video games. Just, you know, any old time you want to. Feel free to barge right on in.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Kurt smiles slightly before closing the door, and there’s a strange muffled sound just a few seconds later. Finn hopes Kurt’s not crying again, but if he is, talking to Blaine will probably cheer him up.

When Finn gets into his own room, Puck’s already in there, drinking a Jack and Coke. “Hey, yours is over there,” Puck says, gesturing to Finn’s desk. “Already put the game in.”

“Cool. Thanks, dude.” Finn picks up his drink and takes a sip. It’s a lot stronger than he expected for a drink that’s mostly Coke, but then, he doesn’t drink a lot of Jack Daniels, so he’s not the best judge. Puck’s sitting right in the middle of the bed, so Finn shoves him over. “Move your ass. I’ve got some zombies to shoot.”

  


It isn’t the first cock he’s sucked. Finn might be a little offended not to be the first, come to think of it, so Puck decides not to mention it. Usually Puck prefers the ladies, but sometimes there’s a hot piece of ass combined with badass that happens to be a dude, Puck doesn’t protest, he just rolls with it.

Kurt didn’t seem to think much of Puck’s plan, or of Puck’s one move, but if it works, Puck’ll take it. Finn’s gradually relaxing as Puck keeps moving his mouth and tongue on him, and after a few minutes, Puck can feel one of Finn’s hands on his head. Finn makes these quiet gasps and whines as Puck speeds up, and Puck braces his hands on either side of Finn’s hips. 

Finn says, “Puck?” in a desperate sounding voice and he pushes at Puck’s shoulder with his other hand, and Puck’s pretty sure that Finn’s trying to let him know that he’s close. Puck keeps his mouth on Finn’s cock, though, still moving as Finn’s hips buck, then Finn apologizes, then he comes, his fingers tightening in Puck’s hair. 

Puck pulls back slowly, replacing Finn’s boxers, and he slumps against the side of Finn’s bed. He wipes his mouth in what he hopes is a discreet way, but probably isn’t. When he glances over at Finn, Finn just looks stunned. 

“Okay, dude?” Puck finally asks. 

Finn makes the stupid–face and doesn’t look directly at Puck, but after a half a minute or so, he slowly nods his head. 

“Really, think about how much you’d miss out on, dude,” Puck says, like they were in the middle of a conversation. “No reason to sign up for uniforms. I bet they itch anyway. Having to report to someone twenty-four, seven.” Puck shakes his head. “Talk about a bummer.”

Finn sighs, and his head swivels in Puck’s direction. “I’ve gotta. I can’t do anything else,” he says quietly, slurring the words. “I’m not good at anything that counts.”

“Bullshit,” Puck fires back. “You’ve barely even tried. The world isn’t like, football or acting or Army, you know.”

Finn rolls onto his side, with his back to Puck. “That’s all I know how to do,” he mutters.

“You don’t know how to Army,” Puck can’t help but retort. “You just think you do, ‘cause you don’t know what it’s actually like.” Finn curls up into a tighter ball on the bed, but doesn’t otherwise respond to Puck. 

Puck sighs and shakes his head. He pours himself a shot of Jack Daniels and gulps it down. Maybe Kurt’s right. Maybe he only has one move. 

Maybe that one move kinda sucks.

  


Finn’s phone rings at just before eight, and he knows it’s Rachel, because it’s that song from that musical that she programmed into the phone for herself. Finn looks at the phone and stretches his legs and arms for a second, and whacks Puck in the leg.

Okay, so that’s two mornings in a row now. He should just schedule the damn freakouts in his phone calendar or something.

Puck grunts and moves a little, but doesn’t wake up, so Finn picks up the phone. If he waits just a few more bars, it’ll go to voicemail, and maybe that would be better. Instead, he sighs and answers it.

“Hi, Rachel.”

“Hi, Finn,” Rachel says, her voice soft and a little bit sad. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Yeah, but it’s okay,” Finn says. He tries to say it bracingly, but he’s not exactly sure what that means, so he probably just says it louder than he needs to. “How’s New York?”

“Oh!” Rachel sounds less sad. “It’s wonderful. Today’s my first full day here, of course. My dads have a very full itinerary for us. First we’re going to go get bagels, though.” There’s a pause. “And… how are things in Lima?”

“They’re, uh.” Finn looks over at Puck. “They’re _fine_ , everybody’s fine, we’re all just… we’re fine.”

“Oh, well, good,” Rachel answers, sounding relieved. “I… I don’t really know what to say, Finn,” she continues, voice growing quiet.

“You don’t need to say anything. It’s okay. I, uh.” Finn pauses, not sure exactly what he’s supposed to say, either. “It’s good to hear your voice. You take care of yourself, alright?”

“I will. You too, Finn, okay?” Rachel sniffles a little. “I— just be careful, please.”

“Yeah, I will. Goodbye, Rachel.”

“Bye, Finn.” There’s another sniff before the call ends. 

Finn flops backwards onto the bed, phone still in hand. “Everything is soooo fucking weird,” he says to himself. 

Next to him, Puck rolls over slightly, his back to Finn, and he exhales loudly before his breathing is even again. Nothing could really make things any weirder, not at this point, so Finn puts the phone down and curls up behind Puck. If Puck can blow him and somehow that’s supposed to be okay, Finn can damn well spoon Puck for a half hour, and Puck can just deal with it.

  


Kurt immediately closes his laptop when he hears the knock on his door, since there should only be one other person in the house, now that Puck’s left to clean pools. “Come in,” Kurt calls, setting his laptop to the side.

“Hey,” Finn says. He stands in the doorway, looking awkward. “So, uh.”

“Have a seat,” Kurt says, pressing his lips together and looking to the side. If he’s not careful, he’ll start to laugh, and Kurt doesn’t want Finn to think Kurt’s laughing at him, even if he sort of is.

Finn perches on the foot of Kurt’s bed, not looking any less awkward. “Yeah, so. Remember what we talked about yesterday?”

“Your friend’s situation. Yes.” Kurt resists the urge to roll his eyes at the ridiculous pretext, but clearly it makes Finn feel better to use it. 

“Yeah. So, uh. So do you think it counts if… you know, one of them is really, uh. Confused?”

“I’m fairly certain that confusion is a hallmark of most, if not all, teenage interactions of a sexual or romantic nature. Or both.” Kurt tilts his head and tries to look sympathetic and interested instead of knowing and amused. “Is there a particular piece of the puzzle that makes things so confusing for your… friend?”

“Yeah, the dude part. I mean, uh.” Finn looks vaguely panicked. “Fuck. I can’t remember now who I said they were.”

“Oh, dear,” Kurt murmurs, trying to make sure Finn doesn’t hear him. “So the guy and the girl,” Kurt says more loudly. “They’re both confused? Or only one of them?”

“Well, one of ‘em is sure confused. I don’t know about the other one,” Finn says. “And, uh. My friend, he just, you know. Got out of a serious thing with somebody else. _Not_ a dude. Not, you know, uh. That there’s another dude. Involved. In this. Like, at all.”

“So your friend is confused because it seems sudden, perhaps?” Kurt asks, because he’s pretty certain that if he even hinted to Finn that he knew, more or less, what was going on, Finn would collapse in a heap on the floor. Kurt is equally certain his plans for the day do not involve transporting Finn to the nearest emergency room. 

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s that. Well, partly that,” Finn says, nodding his head a little too hard and fast. “Not the dude thing at all. Since, you know, he’s the only dude!”

“Did he think perhaps that the girl wasn’t interested in him in that way, previously?” Kurt shrugs. “As long as he’s enjoying himself, I’m not sure where the problem really lies.” Puck owes him, Kurt decides. Puck definitely owes him for this.

“Uh. Maybe?” Finn says, then he mutters to himself, “Wait, shit. Which one’s the girl?”

“Since your friend just got out of a serious relationship, maybe he needs some fun.” Kurt shrugs. “As long as everyone’s on the same page, Finn, honestly, I think your friend should analyze it less.”

Puck _really_ owes him.

“How do they know if they’re on the same page?”

“Has one of them bought a ring, made grandiose professions of love, or otherwise appeared to be in a very bad rom-com?” Kurt can’t help but ask, because the idea of either Finn or Puck making grand professions to each other is an image he’ll treasure for at least a few days. 

“Well, no,” Finn says, looking confused. 

“Then they’re probably fine.” Kurt tilts his head. “I assume that your friend, for whatever reason, cannot just ask?”

“Uh, dude, I think he has, like, _no_ idea what he’d even ask.”

“Fair enough, then,” Kurt nods. “I really can’t advise further, though, not without more detail.”

Finn apparently forgets for a moment that this story is supposedly not about him, because he gives Kurt a scandalized look. “What? _No_.”

“Not _that_ kind of detail, Finn,” Kurt says with a shake of his head. “I don’t have a desire to know such things about your friend and this girl.”

“Well, good. ‘Cause I don’t know that kinda detail. Since, you know, I wasn’t there.”

“Of course.” Kurt looks exaggeratedly at the clock. “Was there anything else for now, Finn? I’m supposed to meet Blaine in a bit.”

“No. No, I don’t guess so.” Finn stands up and wanders towards the door. “Thanks for listening. About my friend.”

“Anytime,” Kurt answers easily. “Well, almost anytime,” he amends. After Finn leaves, Kurt packs up his laptop and grabs a few things, putting them all in his bag before driving towards the Lima Bean to meet Blaine. 

Blaine’s already there, a cup of coffee in his hand, and Kurt smiles as he sets down his bag in the empty chair. “I’ll just go get my drink and be right back,” he says to Blaine, placing his phone on the table. 

“I’ll be here when you get back!” Blaine promises.

Kurt quickly orders himself an iced version of his favorite drink, and returns to the table, still smiling to himself. He did an excellent job of crying all over Finn the night before, Finn and Puck are being obliviously amusing, and he has several ideas in mind for his and Puck’s project.

Blaine is holding Kurt’s phone in one hand, for whatever reason, and Kurt, still smiling, starts to ask him if something’s wrong with the phone.

“You passlocked it,” Blaine says, without even looking up at Kurt.

“Yes,” Kurt says slowly, setting his drink on the table and slowly lowering himself into the chair. “Did you need something on it? I know I keep forgetting to pass on Brittany’s number.”

“You got a text while you were at the counter.”

“Oh, okay.” Kurt narrows his eyes slightly. “Is there a problem, Blaine?” he asks, holding his hand out for his phone. 

“It was from Puck,” Blaine says, still not handing over the phone. “Why is Puck texting you?”

“We’re working on a project together. We’re friends. Please hand me my phone.”

“He said he needed to work on a second move. That doesn’t really sound like a project, Kurt.”

“I don’t disagree with his assessment,” Kurt replies, because it’s so very true. Puck needs at least one additional move. “And it is, in fact, for a project. _Hand me my phone_.”

Blaine hands the phone to Kurt, somewhat petulantly. “What kind of project? It’s summer.”

“Something personal we both have an interest in. Why the interrogation?”

“Why can’t I just be interested in what’s going on in your life?” Blaine asks. “It’s not an interrogation to ask a few questions, Kurt.”

“You seem upset for someone who’s ‘just interested’,” Kurt points out. “You also wouldn’t hand me my phone until the third time I asked.” Kurt types in his passcode quickly and responds to Puck’s text with one sentence: _yes you do_.

“Why did you passcode protect it?” Blaine asks. “You didn’t used to have one on there.”

“Multiple reasons. Until two days ago, I was living in a house with two other guys. Now just one. Sam likes to grab my phone and see if Mercedes has mentioned him, for starters.”

“Is one of those reasons that you’re still getting texts you don’t want me to see?” Blaine looks like he can’t decide if he should be angry or very hurt, and Kurt’s not sure why he should be either of those things.

“Excuse me?” Kurt asks, tilting his head. 

“Is it Puck? Is he texting you about… his ‘moves’?” Blaine spits out the last word. 

“I told you we were working on a project,” Kurt replies stiffly. “I don’t think I appreciate what you’re insinuating.”

“Project? Kurt, what _project_ could you possibly be working on with him?” Blaine says. “And I don’t have to insinuate that you’ve had boundary issues with texting before. I can say that outright.”

Kurt tightens his fingers around his phone, which lights up and vibrates in his hand as Puck sends a reply. “ _You_ feel that I did. I thought we had agreed to let that lie, Blaine. Neither of us has been exactly innocent with regards to texting others this year. I wasn’t aware, however, that my phone had to be unlocked for you at all times.”

“I thought we were being honest with each other now, Kurt. I didn’t think there was any more keeping secrets.”

“Locking my phone— _from everyone_ —is not the same as keeping secrets.” Kurt takes a deep breath. Not wanting Finn to steal his phone to play Angry Birds, not wanting Rachel to find out about the train station plan ahead of time, not wanting Sam to read all of Mercedes’ texts – all of them were or are valid reasons, in Kurt’s opinion. “Do you want me to read every text you received from Sebastian?”

“There was nothing inappropriate about those texts!” Blaine protests. “If you had asked to see them while I still had them in my phone, I would have let you.”

“Yet you deleted them,” Kurt says mildly. “Why don’t you trust me, Blaine? What’s so threatening about my texting a friend?”

“I started out as your friend, too, Kurt.”

Kurt stares at Blaine incredulously. “Are you saying that I cannot have male friends, because I might eventually want to date them?”

“Maybe male friends like Puck aren’t a great idea, no. That’s what I’m saying,” Blaine snaps. 

Kurt draws back, feeling a little stung. “I don’t even know what you’re trying to say,” he finally manages. “Either you’ve decided I’m predatory or you’ve decided Puck is. I’m not sure which is worse.” He can’t protest that Puck is completely heterosexual, because obviously that isn’t true. He can’t even begin to explain that his brother and his brother’s best friend are doing _something_ , and he’s the only other one who knows anything at all about it. Ultimately, Blaine’s going to have to trust him, but it doesn’t seem like Blaine _does_. 

“I think you should be focusing on your goals,” Blaine says. “Not on some ‘project’ with a guy whose lifegoal is cleaning pools. Puck’s… _nice_ and all, I just don’t think he’s beneficial to what you’re trying to accomplish this summer.”

Kurt tilts his head, taking in Blaine’s almost–too–earnest face and the lame delivery of his explanation, like he came up with a cover story after Kurt called him on it. “What _am_ I trying to accomplish this summer,” Kurt muses, almost under his breath. “As it happens, one of my goals aligns completely with this project. I have a considerable amount of time at my disposal, Blaine.”

“I wish you trusted me enough to tell me about the project.” Blaine’s face rearranges into a deep pout, clearly gearing up for a good sulk, and Kurt sighs. 

“Some things are not entirely mine to tell, Blaine. I’m sure you respect other people’s right to keep things private.” Kurt also doesn’t feel like enduring round two of the discussion about Finn and the Army. Neither he nor Blaine seem likely to change their minds, so why argue about it? 

“Fine,” Blaine sighs. “Let’s just talk about the auditions next week, then.”

True to his word, Blaine doesn’t return to the topic of Puck or texting the rest of the time he’s there, focusing solely on auditions and what might be good on television over the summer. After Blaine leaves, Kurt pulls out his laptop and does more research, waiting on Puck to arrive.

Puck walks in five minutes early, heading straight to the counter before dropping into the chair Blaine vacated, a huge iced coffee in one hand and a large bottle of water in the other. “It is fucking burning up out there,” Puck says without preamble.

“I’ve been in here for hours. It was still tolerable when I got here,” Kurt says. “Well, the temperature was tolerable.”

Puck swings his backpack off his shoulder and takes a long drink of his iced coffee before replying. “Trust me, it’s like hellfire and brimstone or whatever, now.” He unzips his backpack and pulls out a few papers. “Also, I didn’t have to steal them, I just gave Ms. P a sob story and teared up a bit.” He laughs. “Not as good as you apparently did with Finn.”

“Yes, I’m clearly a master at my craft,” Kurt says wryly. “Hence my admission into the performing arts college of my choosing.”

Puck waves his hand dismissively. “Not your fault Berry took your spot. Poor woman was probably afraid Rachel’d sue her.”

“Rachel is terrifying,” Kurt agrees. “I keep trying to reframe my perspective to make this somehow a good thing, but I’m not coming up with anything. If I’d gotten in and Rachel hadn’t, she and Finn would be married now and he might not be having this crazy idea about the Army.”

“Hmm.” Puck purses his lips. “Begs the question, dude. Which is worse, having your brother in the Army or married to Rachel?”

“Rachel is a dear friend,” Kurt insists. “Finn doesn’t need to marry _anyone_ right out of highschool. Possibly especially not Rachel Berry.”

“Hey, I’m right there with you,” Puck nods. “I tried to convince him to come to L.A. with me. Well. When I had the money to go.” Puck snorts. 

“You did?” Kurt narrows his eyes slightly and gives Puck an appraising look. Perhaps Puck might have used his one move on Finn regardless of the Army situation. “He didn’t mention that.”

“Told him he should think about what he wanted, not just what she wanted. Guess that backfired on me, didn’t it?” Puck says with a shrug. “Anyway, turns out pool cleaning is _not_ on his list of possible careers.”

“No, I wouldn’t think it would be. He burns so easily.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, I don’t think they took that into account.” He looks down at the papers he placed on the table earlier. “He’s, uh. Realistic Theme? I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but there’s a list of careers here.” He pulls out one page and pushes it towards Kurt. “Oh, and kinda social too, but I think he’d make a bad nurse or cosmetologist, so.”

“Oh my, yes. I think it’s best that we don’t let Finn anywhere near cosmetics after the Kiss incident,” Kurt agrees. “There are some real possibilities on here, though.”

“Exactly. I mean. Not a forest ranger, because seriously, they would think he was a yeti, but some of them, yeah.”

“How are your… individual efforts to convince him, we’ll just call them, going?” Kurt asks. 

“He says the Army’s the only thing he knows how to do,” Puck says, glowering. “Zombies, Kurt. Zombies and Jack and Coke and—” he cuts himself off. “Guess I do need a new strategy. Or better variations.”

“Cocktails, maybe,” Kurt suggests, still looking at the list of suggested careers. “Though I’m not so sure he has any actual notion of what being in the Army entails. What do you think he thinks it will be like?”

“He mentioned being stationed in ‘Alaska or France’. I think he thinks he’ll follow orders, wear what they tell him, and play pretend,” Puck says scornfully. “I’m not sure he’s really made the connection between weapons and shooting people.”

“No, I don’t think he has,” Kurt agrees. “I think he’s invested in this family honor fantasy, but has absolutely no idea what that actually means.”

“Exactly.” Puck nods, still glowering a little. “So which ones did you think?” he asks, gesturing to the list.

“Hmm. Firefighter. EMT, maybe, though I’m not sure how well he’d handle the blood. I’m not sure what a Conservation Officer is; do you think that has a uniform?” Kurt continues looking at the list, talking to himself as he goes. “No, postal worker is out. He has some sort of complex about mailmen. Police officer. Yes, that’s similar enough to military, without the landmine risk.”

“So… we’re going for all the ones with uniforms, then?” Puck asks, grinning a little. “Should we add UPS driver to the list, in that case?”

“Oh, I’m not sure he could really pull off that shade of— _Puck_!” Kurt blushes slightly. “Honestly. This isn’t about a uniform fetish, though it would probably be helpful for Finn to not have to worry about dressing himself every day.”

“I didn’t say anything about a fetish.” Puck’s grin grows wider. “That was all you. That’s, what, three possibilities? Should we each investigate all three, or divide them up?”

“I don’t have a fetish,” Kurt mutters under his breath. “I think we should both investigate all three. We’re bound to come up with different details, given our different approaches. Meet back here tomorrow, same time?”

Puck nods. “Not how to do it in Lima, though. Right?”

“Anywhere but Lima.”

“Words to live by,” Puck agrees, putting Finn’s career inventory back in his backpack and standing up. “Tomorrow, then.”

“Puck?”

“Yeah?” Puck asks, picking up his trash.

“Try not to break his brain too badly, please?”

  


“I need your help,” Puck announces as soon as Finn picks up the phone.

“Okay,” Finn answers. He sound suspicious. “What kind of help?”

“Eating help. I, uh.” Puck looks around the kitchen and grabs the receipt, crumpling it into a ball and tossing it into the trash, rearranging some cans on top of it. “I won a contest. For Breadstix takeout. You need to come help me eat all of it.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s cool. I can do that!”

“Yeah, so come over whenever. And, uh. Our… power is out?” Puck says, because he can’t think of any other reason for a lot of candles lit up. “So you know. Bring some candles or a flashlight or whatever.”

“Your ma forget to pay the bill again?” Finn asks.

“Yeah. Guess she figured with her and Alexis gone, didn’t matter too much.” Puck shrugs. “As long as I don’t burn the place down it’ll be fine.”

“Need me to bring anything else? I mean, if the power’s out, all the stuff in your fridge is gonna go bad. I could bring, like, a cooler full of ice?”

“Yeah, that’d be cool,” Puck answers, frowning as he looks around the kitchen. He’s going to have to actually cut off the power at the meter or something. “Ice is good.” Ice has lots of different uses. “I’m going to take a useless shower. See you when you get here.”

Finn hangs up and Puck sets down the phone, going outside to actually cut off the power first thing, before taking a quick shower and starting to light all the candles. Puck’s Ma will totally understand his motivation for using up all her candles, he’s pretty sure. She always liked Finn and never has seemed to like wars, so. She won’t go too ballistic. Puck’s almost certain of it.

There’s a loud thump against the front door, and Puck goes to open it, tossing the lighter back into his pocket. Finn’s standing there, holding a cooler and a flashlight, the look on his face an odd cross between wary and eager. 

“Hey, dude,” Puck greets him, walking back towards the kitchen. “It’s kind of hot in here, but. I opened the windows.”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Finn says. “I brought some pop. It’s in the cooler. So it’s cold.”

“Awesome. Yeah, the heat’s good for keeping the food hot at least,” Puck says, handing Finn a paper plate. “There’s like, uh. A lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, that’s… you won all of this in a contest?” Finn gives the food a dubious look. “What contest?”

“One of those office party things, where you put a business card or whatever in,” Puck says, aiming for dismissive. “I said that I had five employees, though.”

“So they gave you six people’s worth of food, I guess,” Finn says, nodding. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. What are you gonna do with the leftovers, though? I mean, with the power being off.”

“Mrs. Buchanan’s is still on, I’ll give her some of it so next time Alexis blasts One Direction, she’ll forgive us quicker.” Puck grins. “Unless you end up eating it all. Oh, and I showed them a fake ID, so they even threw in wine. Who serves wine at an office party?”

“Business people, maybe?” Finn shrugs. “Thanks for inviting me over, but, there wasn’t, like, somebody else? It’s Breadstix, you could’ve had. Somebody.”

“Who, dude?” Puck scoffs, loading up his plate. “Plus don’t really feel like explaining the power thing.” Kurt’s right, he’s so right, even this variation is not going well. Maybe Puck should just drink the whole bottle of wine, and then at least he wouldn’t care about the sweat pouring down his back. It’s all he’s good at though, seducing people and playing guitar, so if that can’t convince Finn, they really are going to need those websites Puck found off Google.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Anyway, thanks. This is cool.” Finn starts putting food on his plate, too. “It’s funny that they don’t give you breadsticks when you get takeout from Breadstix.”

“Guess they had people driving back to get their free refill of breadsticks or something.” Puck shrugs and grabs one of the bottles of wine. “I have no clue if it’s red or white so. Pick one.”

“Uh. The label on this one has a tree and I like trees, so, I guess that one,” Finn says. 

“Makes sense.” Puck opens both bottles and passes the one with the tree to Finn. “Dig in.”

Finn looks at the bottle with his stupid–face, then shrugs and takes a swig from it. “That’s, uh. Very winey.” He takes another drink and shudders. “Is it supposed to taste like that, do you think?”

Puck shrugs. “Maybe it was the cheap wine. Since it was, uh, free and all.” It _was_ the cheap wine, but Finn doesn’t have to know that’s completely certain. “Food’s good, though.”

“Yeah, it is.” Finn eats more of his food and drinks more of the wine, then says, “You know, the wine’s not so bad if you keep drinking it.”

“Drink enough and you forget why it didn’t taste great to begin with?” Puck shrugs and takes a long drink of his own wine. “So I’d say that we should shoot more zombies, but.”

“Hard to do with the power out,” Finn agrees. “What do people do when they don’t have power? We could throw the football around or something.”

“It’s so fucking hot out there.” Puck shakes his head, then grins. “Water fight. If we give Mrs. Buchanan enough food, you can use her hose and I’ll use mine.”

Finn grins back, like that’s the best idea Puck’s ever had, and he finally seems relaxed instead of half–wary. “Sweet! You should pour her some of this wine in a paper cup or something, too.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean a… red Solo cup?” Puck asks with an equally large grin.

“I didn’t know we were being that formal, but sure!”

“Every occasion can be made classier with the right, uh.” Puck shrugs. “Accessories?”

“Did you win a free watch or something, too?” Finn asks. “Okay, I seriously can’t eat anymore.”

“I _should_ enter a contest for a free watch. That’d be awesome.” Puck shrugs and puts some of the food into one container. “Go on outside, I’ll go sweet talk the old lady.”

Finn goes out into the backyard, and Puck heads next door, doing his best to charm Mrs. Buchanan, who turns out to love Italian food and wine. Puck walks around to the backyard and manages to grab one hose and turn on the faucet before Finn notices him. 

“Hey, Finn!” he yells, bringing the hose up as Finn turns around.

“What?” Finn asks. Puck aims for the middle of Finn’s chest, laughing at the expression on Finn’s face. Finn jumps backward, shouting, “Hey!”

“Grab your weapon!” Puck calls, keeping the spray on Finn. Finn yelps and laughs, and turns on the faucet behind Puck’s half of the shitplex, then aims the hose at Puck.

“You better run, dude,” Finn shouts. “I’m coming for you.” He takes a step in Puck’s direction. 

“Oooh, I’m scared,” Puck taunts. “Whatcha gonna do to me?”

“Uh, I’m gonna…” Finn looks over to the far end of Puck’s yard, then without looking at Puck, aims the hose at Puck’s face. “That!”

Puck wipes some of the water from his eyes and charges at Finn, hose still in hand, then holds it over Finn’s head. “Wet enough yet?”

Finn shoves the other hose inside the waistband of Puck’s pants. “ _Cold_ enough yet?”

“Asshole,” Puck laughs, pulling the hose back out and trying to control both of them until Finn wrestles one of them away from Puck. Finn tries to run with the hose, but it’s tangled with the hose Puck’s holding, and he’s yanked backwards onto his butt.

“Ow! My ass!” Finn tugs the hose as he climbs to his feet. 

Puck laughs even harder. “Watch where you’re going.” He raises the hose just enough to catch Finn right across the neck and shoulders. Finn squeals and aims the hose at Puck’s legs.

  


[ ](http://i.minus.com/iLv6Ws5jQoFP2.png)

  


“I’m watching! You’d better watch it!”

“Watch what? Your ass?” Puck jokes. 

“Huh?” Finn freezes momentarily, and Puck raises the hose to catch Finn in the face. Finn coughs and sputters, wiping at his eyes with the backs of his hands. 

Puck’s almost bent over, he’s laughing so hard, and he probably shouldn’t be surprised that there’s mud under him now, nor that he slips in it, first onto his ass and then onto his back, but it just makes him laugh harder. “Come help me up,” he manages through his laughter. 

“Oughta just leave you there,” Finn says, but he leans over and offers Puck his hand. Puck grips it tightly and tugs Finn’s arm towards him in one sharp movement. Finn’s feet shoot out from under him and he topples face first onto Puck with a loud splat, mud flying up all around them. “Oh, you _asshole_!” Finn shouts, spitting out mud. 

Puck howls, gripping Finn’s shirt in one hand and using his other hand to grab some mud, which he smears down the side of Finn’s face. “You got mud on your face, dude.” 

“ _Dude_!” Finn tries to sit up, but Puck’s grip on his shirt is too tight. Instead, Finn slides his hand through the mud and then wipes it across the top of Puck’s head. “Mud in your hair.”

Puck grabs a bigger handful of mud and slaps it on Finn’s shoulder, dragging his hand down Finn’s arm. “Mud allll over you,” he sing-songs. 

Finn scoops up a huge handful of mud in one hand and holds it up, waggling his hand threateningly. He leans his weight forward, pinning Puck against the ground. “Mud all over who?” 

“You,” Puck says, a little defiantly. “All over your face and your shirt and—” He stops mid-sentence, suddenly realizing just how close Finn is and how easy it would be to lean up and kiss Finn, and— shit. Kissing isn’t just Saving Private Finn shit, like the handjob and the blowjob were. Kissing’s something more and just _shit_. “And your hands,” Puck finishes lamely. 

An odd look crosses Finn’s face and he frowns slightly, lowering the hand with the mud. “Yeah, I’m kind of a mess,” he says. He pushes himself off of Puck, sitting back on his heels and wiping his muddy hand on the grass. “You wanna go get cleaned up and see if the power’s back on or something?”

“Yeah,” Puck nods, clearing his throat and rolling onto his side before pushing himself into a sitting position. “Yeah, we should do that.” Puck wants to roll his eyes at himself. He tried finding a new move—and succeeded—but in the process apparently crossed some line in his own head. 

“Here,” Finn says, offering his hand to Puck. “Don’t pull me in this time, okay? That’s one of those shame on me things, right?”

Puck forces a grin onto his face and chuckles, using Finn’s hand for leverage so he can stand up. “Right. We should roll up Mrs. Buchanan’s hose for her. Turns out she loves Italian.”

“Yeah, here.” Finn holds his other hand out for the hose. “I’ll roll it up, if you wanna go in and… I dunno. Shower.”

“Leave your clothes in the kitchen, dude. Ma’ll kill me if there’s mud all over the damn house.”

“Sure. I won’t make a mess.” Finn starts rolling up the hose, and Puck goes in through the back door, stopping just in front of the refrigerator to strip and wipe his feet on his already–dirty jeans before heading towards the bathroom and getting in the shower. 

When he finishes a few minutes later, he wraps a towel around his waist and heads out into the darkening hall – there wasn’t really a good place to light any candles in the hall, so Puck stuck with the living room, kitchen, and his bedroom. He only takes a couple of steps before he runs right into Finn, who’s still muddy, but, as instructed, is stripped down to his boxers. 

“Sorry, dude,” Puck mumbles, stepping sideways, but Finn steps the same direction.

“Sorry!” Finn says, trying to back against the wall, but then quickly stepping away from it, hands up. “Right. Mud.” 

Puck knows this shouldn’t feel awkward, because they walk around in towels and less in the locker room all the time, but he’s still trying to process the fact that he almost kissed Finn while they were both lying in the mud in the backyard. He chuckles, and it sounds nervous to his own ears. “Yeah, I think the tub’s brown now.”

“I’ll rinse it out after I shower,” Finn says. “You, uh. Got some stuff I can throw on?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Puck nods, possibly too vigorously, and edges towards his bedroom. “Better be shorts or you’re going to look like Anderson.”

“His clothes confuse me,” Finn says. “There’s too much of some stuff and not enough of other stuff. I thought Kurt’s clothes were weird, but, Blaine, seriously.” He takes a step backwards, away from Puck. “I’ll just get the clothes after. If I take ‘em now, they’ll be all muddy.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Puck nods. “I’ll just, uh. Wait in here.” He points to his bedroom and steps inside, while Finn continues to the bathroom, but once Puck gets inside the bedroom fully, he decides it’s too hot to find clothes just yet, so he sprawls on his bed. He tells himself he’ll get up in just a minute and find clothes for himself and Finn, too. After he feels cooler. 

“Hey, that shower is cold as— Oh.” Puck cracks his eyes open to look over at the doorway, where Finn’s standing with a towel around his waist and an expression that is definitely a cross between ‘oh fuck’ and ‘oh shit’.

“You missed a spot,” Puck says lazily, still not moving.

“I what?”

“On your face. There’s still some mud.”

Finn wipes at one cheek with his hand. “Get it?”

Puck grins, suddenly at ease again. “Other cheek, dumbass.”

Finn wipes at his other cheek, but about an inch too low, still missing the mud entirely. “Are you sure you’re not just fucking with me?”

“Dude, you still missed it. Look in the mirror.”

Finn smiles broadly at Puck. “Nah. You get it.” He crosses towards the bed and sits down. 

Puck keeps grinning, leaning up just enough to run his thumb over the smear of mud. “There. All cleaned up.” He turns his thumb towards Finn, showing him the brown smudge on it.

“Alright, alright. So you’re not a liar,” Finn concedes. “This time, anyway.” He looks away quickly, face turning red. 

“Why would I lie about something like that?” Puck asks, smirking, because yeah, if he’d thought of it and Finn hadn’t missed a spot, he totally would’ve. Finn doesn’t answer, just shrugs and keeps his face turned away, cheeks still red. “Sorry, I got too hot to get clothes out yet.”

“Yeah, it’s really warm in here,” Finn says. “Sucks about the power.”

“Yeah.” Puck nods. It does suck that he couldn’t come up with a better reason for candles than a power outage in the summer. “You want some more of that wine?”

Finn still doesn’t quite look at Puck, an almost–smile on his face. “Without the wine’s okay, too.”

  


When Kurt’s phone beeps, interrupting his research, and he sees the text from Puck, he assumes that means Finn’s on his way home. He goes to the message curiously, barely stifling a laugh as he reads it.

_i have more than 1 move now_

_good for you, well done_ is what Kurt sends back a moment later. 

_think maybe its a dude–only move tho_

_the horror!_

_lol shut up. c u later_

Kurt shakes his head and navigates away from the texts from Puck before putting his phone down. He can’t imagine Finn doing well if he realized that Kurt actually knew what was going on, more or less.

Moments later, as if on cue, Kurt can hear Finn’s truck, and he opens the bedroom door preemptively. Finn appears in Kurt’s doorway shortly after. 

“Hey, so…”

“Good morning,” Kurt greets him. “You want to come in, I assume?”

“Yeah. Is that cool?” Finn asks. He shifts from foot to foot, looking even more awkward than usual.

“Of course.” Kurt indicates for Finn to sit on the bed. 

“So, uh. How was your night?” 

“A disappointment, actually,” Kurt says, shrugging slightly. “We were supposed to go see Men in Black 3, but Blaine decided it would keep him out too late for his early morning rehearsal of his disco medley.” And after that, Kurt adds mentally, Blaine suggested they go back to Kurt’s for some ‘private time’, which had turned into ‘satisfying Blaine’ time, the end result being Kurt having to take a shower after Blaine left in order to be even close to ‘satisfied’.

“There’s a disco medley?” Finn asks, looking confused. 

“The _very prestigious_ Blankenhurst Company is doing a traveling musical revue of the ‘70s this summer, and Blaine is determined to nail his audition.”

“Oh. Well, uh. Good for him, I guess?” Finn says, shrugging. “If, you know, that’s what he really _wants_.” Finn exhales loudly and a touch dramatically. “So, you remember about that friend of mine, right?”

“Yes. One of the younger guys on the football team?” Kurt raises his eyebrow, knowing full well that Finn’s said no such thing, but he’s pretty sure Finn needs the reassurance. Especially after Puck’s text.

“What are you— _Yes_. Yes, one of the younger guys. From the football team. Who is my friend,” Finn says, nodding rapidly. “That friend.”

“He’s still confused about the girl?”

“Yeah, so, uh. You said you couldn’t really give any more advice without more details, right?” Finn asks. 

“True,” Kurt agrees. “It becomes a bit too theoretical otherwise.”

“Okay, so. Okay.” Finn breathes out loudly. “So, I maybe wasn’t _totally_ upfront before.”

“Oh? In what way?” Kurt tries to look interested and curious rather than amused and smug. 

“My, uh, friend. It’s not a girl he’s confused about,” Finn says. “It’s another dude. It’s two dudes. No girl.”

“Ahhh.” Kurt nods slowly. At least that acknowledgment makes his position a bit easier. “Is it safe to say this is the first time your friend has fooled around with another guy?”

“Well, no. I mean, now it’s, uh. The third time.”

“But it’s new?” Kurt asks for clarification. “Overall, it’s the first… set of experiences?”

Finn nods. “Yeah. First, uh. Guy experiences.” He clears his throat and repositions himself on the bed. “So, uh. So maybe it doesn’t count because there’s no kissing. Don’t you think?”

“There’s no kissing. But there’s other things.” Kurt presses his lips together. “I think it still ‘counts’.” He chews on his lip and considers how horrible he is for asking. “Is it still like before? Only your friend is finishing? Or is it both parties now?”

“It’s. Um.” Finn suddenly looks rather like a tomato. “Both. Now it’s both.”

Kurt nods and resists the temptation to sigh deeply. It seems unfair that Finn and Puck are managing more than he and his boyfriend of over a year, especially when the house _was_ empty for both… couples? Kurt shakes his head rapidly, because thinking of Finn and Puck as a couple makes his brain hurt. “You have further detail, then?” he blurts out before he can stop himself.

Finn looks at Kurt strangely, with his head cocked to the side like a curious puppy. Probably an Irish Setter, as he’s still bright red. “Yeah. How much detail do you think you need? For, you know. Advice.”

“As much as, ah, your friend felt comfortable sharing?” Kurt suggests.

“It’s cool? You seriously don’t mind hearing about this stuff?” Finn asks. 

“No, it’s fine,” Kurt says reassuringly. “I don’t imagine your friend has many people to ask.”

“No, he _really_ doesn’t,” Finn says. He seems to relax a little, then continues. “So, yeah. He, uh… it started off with just touching. Like you said, it was just, you know. One-way. My friend wasn’t sure what to do, so he didn’t do anything, and the other guy didn’t, like, _ask_ for anything. Or act like he wanted anything, which was weird. Must have been weird, I mean.”

Kurt nods slowly. “Okay. So it was basically focused solely on your friend… at first?”

“Right. I mean, the first time it was just— it’s not gonna bother you if I say stuff like ‘handjob’ right?”

“No, Finn. I _am_ aware of things two guys might do, you know.” 

“Yeah, I know that,” Finn says. “Just, I don’t know. I figured maybe you had some kind of fancy words for it or something, and I don’t want this to be weird or anything.”

“Well, if you like, you can borrow Blaine’s language. It’s ‘being satisfied’.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yes,” Kurt nods, trying not to snicker.

“No. Seriously?”

Kurt does laugh. “Yes. Very seriously.”

“I don’t think I can say it like that, Kurt,” Finn says. “That just makes _me_ uncomfortable. I’ll just stick with ‘handjob’, okay?”

Kurt laughs again. “I’m perfectly fine with that.”

“Thank god. Okay, so. Yeah, the first time it was just a handjob, one-way. And my friend was pretty shitfaced when it happened, so he thought maybe.” Finn shrugs. “Too much to drink. And there was a lot of alcohol the next time, too.”

“And the next time was… a second handjob?” Kurt guesses, because it wasn’t clear from Puck’s comments. 

“Not exactly.” Finn’s face is red again. “Less a handjob and more, you know, the other kind of job.”

“Oh, my.” Kurt’s not sure if he’s impressed by Puck’s dedication or if he should be going over everything he knows more thoroughly. “Okay. Still one-sided?”

Finn nods. “Yeah. Still one-sided. And you know, it’s kinda weird, because the other guy—the one who’s not my friend—keeps talking about my friend’s, like, _life goals_ and shit like that. After.”

“That’s unusual, but.” Kurt shrugs. “I’ll remember that. And the third time?”

“Not one-sided.”

“In… what way?”

“You, uh. Sure? I mean, I kinda know a lot of the details.”

“Just… tell me what you think will help me offer advice?”

Finn nods his head. “Well, so. So my friend went over to this guy’s house, right? And there was dinner and, like, candles and stuff—just because the power was out, nothing weird—and they were drinking wine, and then it was all hot and stuff in there, so they went outside and sprayed each other with hoses, and…” 

“Sounds… fun?” Kurt hazards. “Though not particularly confusing.” He bites his lip again, because he’s pretty sure Puck’s power was not, in fact, out.

“Yeah. It was fun!” Finn says, then quickly adds, “I hear. I hear it was fun. And then they were, like, wrestling around in the mud and then there was this… like a moment, I guess? And my friend thought maybe this guy was gonna kiss him or something? Especially since there’s been this other stuff, but no kissing. Only the other guy didn’t.”

Kurt nods. “Okay. An interesting line to draw. Continue.”

“Well, so they went back inside, and they took showers—by themselves, not together or anything—and then they were back in the guy’s bedroom. The other guy, not my friend, only he was there, too.” Finn shifts in place on Kurt’s bed, his face still red, and Kurt determinedly focuses on Finn’s face. “And they were both wearing towels, because it was super hot in the house, right? And, um.”

“Right,” Kurt agrees. “Let me guess. And then they weren’t?”

“Yeah, then they weren’t. And then it was, you know, both ways. The guy was touching my friend’s— what words are we comfortable with using here?” Finn asks, suddenly. 

“Whatever you prefer, Finn,” Kurt manages to say, shifting a little in place himself.

“Okay. Just, you know, stop me if it’s too much information,” Finn says, then continues. “So, yeah. The guy was touching my friend’s, uh, dick. And my friend just decided to, I dunno. Go for it, I guess. So he put his hand on the other guy’s dick, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t ever done something like that to another guy, so that’s kind of a confusing part, I guess. And maybe the liking it part is confusing, too.”

Kurt takes a deep breath and tells himself mentally that he’s supposed to be helping Finn, not imagining the scene in his head. “So he _did_ like it?”

Finn nods his head slowly. “Yeah. He liked it. I mean, the receiving part, obviously, but… the other part was cool, too. It was just, like, my friend’s forehead resting on the other guy’s head, and their hands moving, and nobody talking, just breathing, and.” Finn stops himself and exhales loudly. “Yeah. He liked it a lot, and now he’s _really_ confused.”

“Well.” Kurt echoes Finn’s exhalation. “I can see where that could be confusing for your friend. Especially if he was seriously dating a girl before this.” Kurt looks to the side, trying to school his expression. “Sexuality is a spectrum. There are some people who feel like those who are exclusively heterosexual or homosexual are the minority, and that most people are at least moderately bisexual. I’m not sure I agree with that assessment, but. There are definitely multiple hues.” Kurt watches his phone light up with a text from Blaine, but he turns back towards Finn without picking it up.

“A spectrum, huh?” Finn’s forehead wrinkles like he’s thinking about that. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe. But… why do you think there’s no kissing? Do you think maybe this guy doesn’t really like my friend like that? I mean, why else would he not kiss him?”

Kurt purses his lips. He’s not sure exactly why there’s no kissing, though he could think of a few theories. “Maybe your friend’s guy.” He stops and shakes his head a little. “Maybe he’s a bit afraid.”

Finn makes a scoffing sound. “Are you kidding? Almost nothing scares this guy. Trust me.”

“It could be new for him, too,” Kurt points out. Or, his brain helpfully supplies, it could be because Puck’s still trying to talk Finn _out_ of reporting to Georgia for who knows how many years in the Army. 

“I don’t know. It kind of reminds me of that dog thing we learned about in science class, with the bell and that’s how the dog gets a reward or something like that,” Finn says, frowning. “Like, what if my friend is the dog, and the handjob and blowjob stuff, that’s like the bell or the buzzer or whatever. Or maybe the lifegoal talk is the bell, and the handjobs are the reward. Would that, you know…” Finn looks somewhat saddened. “Would it count if it’s just a dog bell trick?”

“That’s quite a commitment on the guy’s part, even if it were merely that,” Kurt says. “I would think it says something about your friend and his friendship with this other guy, regardless of how it might have started, don’t you?” 

“You don’t think it would be kind of. Dishonest, maybe?”

“It sounds like there’s not really much conversation happening, to be honest.” Kurt shrugs. “Does your friend want it to stop?”

“Well, I mean, it has to stop eventually, right?” Finn says. “My friend, he’s, uh. He won’t be in town for too much longer and it’s not like this is a _relationship_ or anything like that. So, I mean. I guess it doesn’t matter if he wants it to stop or not.”

“And perhaps that’s the reason why there’s no kissing, then, if your friend is, ah. Moving out of town.”

Finn’s face falls. “Oh. I guess I didn’t think about that. Yeah, maybe that’s why.”

“I’m sorry I can’t offer anything more definitive,” Kurt says softly.

“No, it’s okay. You helped a lot. I’ll tell him all the stuff you said,” Finn says. “You’re really awesome, Kurt. I don’t know what I’m gonna do without you to help me figure this stuff out.”

Kurt smiles sadly. “You’ll be fine, Finn.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Guess I’ve gotta be, right?”

“You will be,” Kurt says more firmly. He forces himself to widen his smile and tries to change the subject. “What do you have planned today?”

“I’ve got this information packet that the Army sent me. I’m supposed to read it, but I kinda haven’t gotten to it yet,” Finn explains. “It’s a _lot_ of pages and, I dunno. The stuff I looked through didn’t make that much sense, but maybe if I start at the beginning.”

“Ah. I’m going to run a few errands in a bit, do you need anything?”

“Do, uh… do you have any pamphlets or something? On that spectrum thing you were talking about?” Finn asks, trying and failing to look nonchalant. 

“For your friend? I’ll see what I can find,” Kurt agrees, knowing that whatever he finds won’t make it downstairs, much less out of the house.

“Thanks, Kurt. You’re the best.” Finn stands up to leave, but then throws his arms around Kurt in a tight bear hug. Kurt leans away from Finn slightly, but returns the hug as best he can. 

After Finn leaves, Kurt exhales heavily and stares at himself in the mirror. He shuts the door and starts muttering to himself. “They’re your friends, Kurt. You have a boyfriend. You should not be— oh, screw it.” He turns away from the mirror and walks into the bathroom, turning on the shower and stepping in as soon as he’s undressed. He wraps his hand around himself and tries not to think about how he’s been hard since some point during Finn’s recitation of what he and Puck did the evening before. 

When Kurt finally leaves the bathroom, he gets dressed and then picks up his phone. He ignores the three texts from Blaine and pulls up the screen with Puck’s texts. 

_you turned the power off so you could light candles? inventive_

  


Tuesday’s pools don’t take as long to clean as Monday’s, so Puck ends up at the Lima Bean a good forty-five minutes early. He claims a larger table, because he has actual notes about stuff, and orders an iced coffee and a bottle of water again before reading back over the top sheet of information.

Kurt hurries into the Lima Bean looking flustered, throws his satchel over the back of the chair, and says, “I’m so sorry I’m late!”

“Oh, are you?” Puck looks up, startled. “I was really early, so.” He shrugs. “You okay?”

“Hmm? Oh, I’m fine. Just got a little behind,” Kurt explains. “I’m going to go get a coffee and we’ll jump right into it, shall we?”

Puck nods. “Sounds good.”

Kurt walks up to the counter and returns in a couple of minutes with a coffee and a chocolate chip croissant. “You want some?” Kurt tears off a piece and offers it to Puck.

“Sure, thanks,” Puck says, taking the piece and popping it into his mouth. “So I Googled all three of ‘em.”

“And what did you find? Anything pointing us more firmly in any one direction?”

“I really don’t think he’d make a good EMT,” Puck admits, frowning a little. “And this one site suggested EMT training to be a firefighter, and another place said a lot of cities, the firefighters really are more like EMTs or something.” Puck shrugs. “I didn’t get it. So I was thinking cop.”

“I did some reading about the psychological profiles of people in those three careers, and definitely agree. EMT is _not_ for Finn. I don’t think he could handle the daily potential for arriving on scene to people he can’t help,” Kurt says. “Firefighter seemed a little more promising, but I’ll be honest with you. I think he might get bored. Apparently fires aren’t as common as we’ve been led by television to believe.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s why they do EMT shit, too,” Puck nods. 

“However, I think police work would appeal to his strong sense of right and wrong,” Kurt continues. “Which, by the way, you are seriously messing with.”

“Huh?” Puck frowns. “What do you mean?”

“He asked me for pamphlets, Puck. _Pamphlets_. On _purpose_.”

“About _what_?”

“The spectrum of sexuality, because apparently whatever the two of you are doing is so far outside his little black and white brain that he requires some sort of literature in order to make it make sense,” Kurt says with a theatrical sigh. “Honestly.”

“Couldn’t he just… Google?” Puck shakes his head. “It’s not like it’s that complicated.” He grins at Kurt. “Go ahead, ask me.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Puck snorts. “You’re not curious at all?”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Yes, I spend so much of my day obsessing over your sexual orientation, Puck.”

“I knew it,” Puck says smugly, ignoring the note of sarcasm in Kurt’s voice. “So, cop. I found this website with all these steps to take.”

“I looked at the requirements for NYPD, Chicago PD, and D.C.,” Kurt says. “Chicago seems too risky, especially considering that our goal is to avoid Finn experiencing any severe physical or emotional trauma. Both New York and D.C. require a minimum of two years of college or military service. Since avoiding the second option is the whole point of this endeavor, that leaves us with the issue of college.”

“Yeah, that’s more or less what I found out. There’s some college in New York that does a lot of police stuff.” Puck frowns. “This is, like. Long term shit, Kurt. How’re we going to get him to agree to stick with it for so long?”

Kurt sighs. “That’s the question, isn’t it. And to convince him to not only enroll in college and become a police officer, but to do it in a different city where he doesn’t know anyone?”

“Yeah, and here we are sending him off and we’re… what? Stuck here?” Puck snorts. “Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got to keep him from heading south at the end of the month, but.”

“Maybe we need to help ourselves along with helping Finn,” Kurt finishes. “Look for a plan that gets all three of us somewhere better than where we’re all currently heading.”

“Would cut costs, maybe,” Puck agrees, nodding a little. 

“That police college is in New York,” Kurt points out. “And New York is also where I happen to want to be. Do you think you’d be interested in relocating to the opposite coast of your original goal?”

Puck shrugs a little. “Wasn’t really looking forward to being the only person I knew out there, but there’s not exactly a lot of pools in New York.”

“Who says you have to keep cleaning pools?” Kurt counters. “We’ve been in glee together for three years, Puck. I’ve noticed you have other talents.” He grins at Puck. “You’ve even picked up a _second whole move_.”

“Which is more successful than the first one, actually,” Puck concedes. “Hell, Kurt, maybe I need you to come up with a plan for me, too,” he jokes. Kurt’s eyes light up and he tilts his head to the side, a small smile on his face.

“You know, that might be exactly the right way to convince Finn to go along with this,” Kurt says. “What if we don’t make it just about him? What if we make it about the three of us, all working together to figure out a plan for each other?”

“You sure you trust Finn and I to come up with one for you?” Puck asks, grinning a little. 

“Nothing you suggest could possibly be worse than another year spent in Lima, doing local theatre productions of _Fiddler_ and singing ‘Boogie Fever’,” Kurt says. “I’m in.”

“So, we get Finn on board tomorrow?” Puck’s not sure what they’ll come up with for him, but Kurt’s right, anything’s better than another year in Lima, and hey, three single dudes banding together in New York’s gotta be a hell of a lot better than one dude trying to scrape by in LA.

“Yes, I think tomorrow would be—”

“Kurt!” Blaine’s voice cuts into the conversation while he’s still halfway across the Lima Bean. “I didn’t know you’d be here tonight. And with Puck, no less!”

Right. Kurt’s not actually single, and Blaine sounds a little too enthused, even for him. 

“Yes, we’re working on that project I mentioned,” Kurt responds. If Blaine seems too enthusiastic, Kurt seems about as far from enthusiastic as possible. 

“I texted you earlier, but I didn’t hear back from you,” Blaine says. He doesn’t make a move towards a seat, just stands there with the fake smile on his face. “I guess now I know why.”

“I was busy,” Kurt replies stiffly. “And you know I don’t text while I’m driving.”

“You can text while you’re drinking coffee, though. Unless you were too… distracted.”

“I _said_ that we are working on our project,” Kurt hisses.

“A project that apparently involves Puck’s _moves_ ,” Blaine hisses back. 

“Hey!” Puck turns to glare at Blaine. “At least I have moves.”

“I’m sorry, Puck,” Kurt says, ignoring Blaine. “I didn’t tell him about your moves. He read the text you sent me yesterday.”

“Dude.” Puck keeps glaring at Blaine. “You have issues with boundaries and reading Kurt’s texts. I heard about that weirdo performance in glee club. Jump to conclusions much?”

“Why are you apologizing to _him_?” Blaine demands, pointing at Puck. “And _you_ ,” he adds, turning in Puck’s direction, “have no right to criticize _my_ boundaries. Kurt is _my_ boyfriend, not yours.”

“You read _my_ text!” Puck protests. “That was private. What it was about is none of your fucking business.”

“Kurt and I have an understanding about inappropriate texts,” Blaine insists. “After that Chandler business, he knows how I feel about suggestive texting!”

Puck can feel his jaw drop as he turns to Kurt. “Dude, are you like. Being watched or something?”

Kurt shakes his head, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowing. “I wasn’t aware that this relationship was suddenly a police state,” Kurt says to Puck, then he turns to Blaine. “For the record, Puck was talking to me about something that occurred with a mutual friend, of which we have _many_ , not about anything between the two of us. However, your utter lack of trust in me is far more telling than any sort of text exchange could be.”

“It’s hard to trust you when you’re sneaking around working on some supposed ‘project’ with Puck, but you won’t even tell me what it is you’re working on!” Blaine says. He looks and sounds like Alexis when she’s on the verge of a full-blown tantrum.

“We’re _trying_ to make sure we aren’t stuck in this shithole town!” Puck blurts out, then makes a face as he turns to look at Kurt again. “Shit. Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kurt assures him. “Puck’s right. Our project, since you seem so doggedly determined not to let this go, is trying to find an alternative plan for Finn, and hopefully for ourselves in the process.”

“What he said,” Puck nods. “Sounds better when he says it.”

“That’s because I have more than two moves,” Kurt says, grinning at Puck.

“The second one _worked_ ,” Puck insists, grinning back.

“Oh, so I heard,” Kurt says, then his faces goes slightly pink and he adds, in an undertone, “in great detail.” Puck grins even more widely. 

“What does that mean?” Blaine demands. “And what do you mean, alternative plans for all of you? Kurt, we _have_ plans, remember?”

“ _You_ have plans for me. _You_ have another year of high school. I can’t stay here another year, Blaine. It’s suffocating.”

“Kurt!” Blaine looks wounded, but like most of his expressions, he looks _too_ wounded, like someone would act wounded in a play or something. “What about New York? How we said we wanted to go together?”

“When I said that, Blaine, I meant I wished you were older! Not that I had to stay here for twelve more months!”

“So, what, you’re going to go to New York with _him_ instead?” Blaine says, pointing at Puck again. Maybe Blaine spending more time with that older brother of his wasn’t a great idea. 

“Hey, look. Chill, dude,” Puck interjects. “We don’t know where anybody’s going. And it’s three of us. Finn, too.” He glances at Kurt, who looks like he’s shaking a little, barely containing his anger or something. 

“Yes!” Kurt bursts out. “We are going to New York. Us. The three of us. We are all going to figure out together what the three of us should do with our lives and we are going to New York City and we are doing it!”

Blaine looks stunned. He blinks slowly at Kurt and his shoulders slump, and when he finally speaks, his voice sounds sulky. “You’re choosing them over me, is what you’re saying. You’d rather let the two of them help you figure out your plans than spend another year here with me.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be here next year, Blaine,” Kurt says firmly. “Were you going to try to have me defer a year at NYADA if I had gotten in?”

“Well, of course not, Kurt, but the fact is that you didn’t get in. I know you’re upset about it, too. I really do understand,” Blaine reaches for Kurt’s hand, but Kurt snatches it away before Blaine can touch him. “But letting your future be decided by a pair of well-meaning idiots—”

Puck says “Hey!” at the same time Kurt snarls, “Excuse me?”

“I’m not saying they aren’t good guys,” Blaine says, holding up his hands in defense. “Puck, I know you’re trying to help, but _Kurt_ , come on. They aren’t exactly a brain trust.”

Puck scowls and grabs his papers off the table, shoving them into his backpack and standing up. “I did get yours and mine, too,” he says to Kurt. “What time tomorrow?”

“Well, if we’re going to bring this up with Finn, we need to have the details hammered out first,” Kurt says, turning his back on Blaine to address Puck. “Meet here around two and then call Finn to meet us after?”

“Yeah, that’s cool.” Puck shoulders his backpack. “I’m going to go punch some things,” he adds, glaring at Blaine. “Later.”

As Puck walks away, he can hear Kurt say to Blaine, “And to think, he gave you a shot glass.”

  


After Finn gets home from Puck’s house the following morning, he knocks on Kurt’s door again. Nothing’s gotten any less confusing and he’s sort of gotten used to telling—but not really telling-telling—all that stuff to Kurt. It makes Finn feel a lot better and Kurt doesn’t seem too put out by it or anything.

“Door’s unlocked,” Kurt calls. 

“Hey,” Finn says, as he walks into Kurt’s room. “So, I talked to my friend about—”

“No,” Kurt interrupts him. “I get to talk first today. Okay?”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s cool,” Finn says. “Do you have a friend with issues, too?”

“No.” Kurt tilts his head and looks at Finn for a moment, then shakes his head. “I had an interesting evening, though.”

“Interesting evenings can be cool. Was it the cool kind of interesting?” Finn frowns. “Or, like, the _sex_ kind of interesting?”

“Neither cool nor sex.” Kurt frowns. “Though I suppose it does mean less of the latter. It’s the I have nothing particular tying me to Lima now interesting.”

Finn’s frown deepens. “Less sex and nothing tying you to— Oh! Did you and Blaine break up?”

“I dumped his controlling, sulky ass,” Kurt says, grimacing. 

“Well, uh… I’m sorry?” Finn offers. “Or possibly congratulations? Maybe some of both, I guess.”

Kurt snorts back a laugh. “It took about two and a half hours altogether.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of hours,” Finn says. “Couldn’t you just have put him on a train to somewhere?”

“No, Finn.” Kurt laughs. “That’s _your_ move.”

“I was being selfless. It could be selfless to put Blaine on a train somewhere. Where’s he like to go? We could still do that,” Finn says. “It’s not really kidnapping if you don’t go with them, I think.”

Kurt keeps laughing. “We could buy him tickets to all the Six Flags.”

“He’d love that. It’s a great parting gift, Kurt. You’re very selfless.”

“I am. Horribly, horribly selfless,” Kurt agrees. 

“Yep. Horribly,” Finn says. “But seriously, are you doing okay? I know how much it sucks, breaking it off with somebody after being serious with them for that long, dude.”

Kurt shrugs. “I’m sure I’ll have my moments. Things haven’t really been right for awhile, and then NYADA was just… too much.” He squares his shoulders. “So. Your friend and his friend.”

“You sure you want to talk about it? Kinda sucks to hear about that stuff when it’s other people, you know?” Finn says. 

“Vicarious living,” Kurt says brightly.

“I guess that means yes, so,” Finn grins at Kurt. “My friend and his friend. Well, it’s still, you know. Two-ways. Still no kissing, though, so I guess it’s still… like however you said it was.”

“Okay. Did the links I sent you to forward help?”

“Maybe a little,” Finn says, shrugging. “I think he doesn’t feel so totally freaked out at least, so that’s good. The freakouts are kind of exhausting. He says.”

“I can’t imagine,” Kurt says candidly. “But that does stand to reason.”

“But yeah, so yesterday, I guess he went back over there, to his, uh. Friend’s house. The friend who’s a guy. And this time, there wasn’t any booze at all, so that was different. I mean, last time they weren’t drunk or anything, but I guess it’s like a… buffer or something?”

Kurt nods. “I suppose that makes sense. Perhaps your friend’s friend was letting the alcohol serve as a potential scapegoat.”

“Like how I asked if the wine coolers meant it didn’t count?”

“Yes, exactly. Only the friend of your friend might have been afraid of a negative reaction.”

“What? Like me punching him or something? I mean, my _friend_ punching him?” 

“Frankly, yes. It sounds like the friend of your friend is more comfortable in a non-heterosexual situation.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty comfortable with it, alright,” Finn says, nodding. “Like, really comfortable. Kind of awesomely comfortable.”

Kurt makes a strange face for a second, but then just nods. “So, then. No alcohol last night?”

“Yeah. No alcohol and more, like, intense, I guess. My friend’s friend, he was a little…” Finn ducks his head a little, trying not to make a face or blush or do anything to give away that he’s actually the friend he’s talking about. “Rougher, I guess. Rougher in a good way, like he wasn’t as worried about getting punched or being told to stop or something.”

“Are we still discussing handjobs?” Kurt asks, with a different strange face. “Or…?”

Finn shakes his head. “No, he, uh. Pushed him down on the bed. My friend’s guy pushed my friend, I mean. There wasn’t any talking or anything, just… he undid my friend’s jeans and slid them off his hips and— are you sure you want me to keep talking about this, Kurt?”

Kurt squeaks a little and shifts in his desk chair. “Yes! I mean. Yes, that’s fine.”

Finn looks at Kurt for a long time before he starts talking again. “Okay. Cool. So, yeah, so he was sitting on the edge of the bed when his friend pushed him over, so his legs were still over the edge, and his friend was sort of kneeling there in front of him.” Finn moves a little on the bed so his body is angled away from Kurt, because it’s both kind of weird and kind of strangely hot to be telling Kurt all of this, and Finn’s not sure he’s ready to add Kurt noticing Finn’s hard-on to the weirdness. “And then my friend’s guy pulled my friend’s dick out of his jeans and started, uh. Sucking on him. Which, he did that before, but it was different this time, maybe because of no alcohol, I dunno.”

“Ah.” Kurt is a little flushed, and he moves a little again. “That’s, um. Maybe so. Continue?”

“You okay, Kurt?”

Kurt nods, maybe a little too quickly, biting his lip. “Fine. I’m fine.”

“Okay. Well, so, my friend’s guy’s mouth was on him, and one of his hands around him, and my friend, he had both of his hands on the guy’s head, like in his hair, moving his head. That was different from the other time, too. My friend didn’t move his friend’s head last time, but his friend let him do it. I dunno, it seemed like maybe he liked it, having my friend hold onto his head like that. I think maybe he liked it.” Finn’s breathing harder now and he has to make a serious effort not to sound all breathy while he’s talking. He glances over at Kurt, who also seems to be breathing pretty hard, and when Finn’s eyes travel downward from Kurt’s face, he can see _why_. “Hey Kurt?” 

“Yes?” Kurt doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Do you think it sounds like he liked it?”

“It, um. Yes. It’s not unusual to enjoy that.”

Finn looks at Kurt not looking at Finn, and he glances down at Kurt’s lap again, and then just because it seems like the thing to ask, he asks, “Do _you_ enjoy that?”

“Finn!” Kurt protests, blushing. “Sometimes,” he mutters.

Finn smiles to himself and keeps talking. “Okay, so probably he liked it. He acted like he liked it, anyway, ‘cause it made him move his head faster and he was running his tongue all up and down. My friend liked it, for sure, and kept holding on to his friend’s hair tighter, and it felt _so_ good, and then when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he came. He came in his friend’s mouth and his friend, he, uh. Swallowed and kept licking him like it was all just totally cool.”

Kurt makes a weird squeaking noise again, and he nods his head at Finn. “So. Um. Your friend’s. Friend. Came too?”

“Not right then, but yeah. A little bit after that.” Finn looks over at Kurt. “Do you want me to show you how?”

“Show me?” Kurt repeats, his face bright red. “You mean?”

“If you don’t want me to, that’s okay. I can go on out and leave you alone, if that’s what you want,” Finn says, shrugging. “Just, I thought maybe.”

Kurt sort of shudders, and then nods, standing up from his desk chair and sliding onto the bed next to Finn. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Show me.”

Finn has to concentrate very hard on the button on Kurt’s pants, and while he’s trying to figure out the little tab thing with the second button, he does take a second to wonder whether this is a very good idea. Puck’s one thing, because Puck’s just… Puck. Kurt is _Kurt_ , though, and Kurt’s not confused about things or secretly anything, and also probably has done this a million more times, and oh shit, Finn is probably going to screw this up big time. Stupid website!

He finally gets all of the buttons and fasteners and zippers and stuff undone on Kurt’s pants, then he slides his hand down the front of the pants, which is sort of difficult, since they’re pretty tight pants. When his hand finds Kurt’s cock, pressing his palm against it, Kurt inhales, his body stiffening a little, and his eyes half–close. Finn carefully wraps his fingers around Kurt’s cock, moving his hand so they’re not both trapped in Kurt’s crazy–tight jeans anymore. He pulls at the waistband of Kurt’s pants with his other hand, trying to tug them down and out of the way. Kurt lifts his hips slightly, and Finn yanks Kurt’s pants and underwear down past Kurt’s hips.

Finn wraps his hand around Kurt’s cock again, now that there’s no other clothes in the way, and he starts moving his hand up and down. Both of them are breathing hard and fast, and Finn moves closer to Kurt, so their sides are almost touching, and he keeps stroking the length of Kurt’s cock. Finn rests his face against the top of Kurt’s head and smells his hair. It smells sweet and good, and it’s silky against Finn’s face. Finn moves his hand a little faster and wishes he could think of something to say to Kurt that would sound smart and sexy like he’s probably used to, but all that comes out is, “Hey Kurt. You smell really pretty.”

Kurt jumps a little and then relaxes, his hips barely moving. “Oh,” he replies quietly. “Thanks.”

Finn keeps his face pressed against Kurt’s hair, his mouth near Kurt’s ear, and his hand still moving on Kurt’s cock. “I know this is maybe kinda weird,” Finn says, hoping it’s not so extra weird with the talking that he’s ruining it or anything. “But you’ve been really cool to me all week. I don’t have anybody else I can talk to like this, but you, you’re all cool and sweet and I trust you.”

“Finn,” Kurt moans quietly. “I— I’m going to.”

“Yeah, yeah you should,” Finn agrees. “I’m right here. It’s okay.” He tightens his fingers slightly, moving his hand up higher on Kurt’s cock, and Kurt lets out another little moan as he comes on Finn’s hand. Finn holds Kurt until he stops moving and then carefully moves his hand away. “Uh. We just wipe our hands on the bed.” Then he remembers that as far as Kurt knows, Finn doesn’t do anything that would require that, so he says, “I mean, uh. Uh. My friend does.”

“Hmm?” Kurt lifts his head slightly. “There’s tissue on the table there.” Kurt smiles and leans over, kissing Finn’s cheek. “Thank you.”

“Oh. Yeah, you’re welcome,” Finn says. 

Kurt makes the same humming noise again and leans back against his pillows, pulling up his pants and refastening them. “What are your plans for the day, Finn?”

“Well, I’ve got this website I’ve been reading, so I was maybe gonna finish that,” Finn says. He wipes his hand on a tissue and tries not to look or sound as awkward as he feels. 

“If you reach the end of the internet, let me know,” Kurt says with a little grin. 

“Uh. Okay, that sounds cool. I’ll do that.” 

Kurt giggles a little. “I was joking. I don’t think that’s possible. There’s always at least one more link.”

“Oh.” Finn laughs once. “Yeah, I guess that’s probably true.”

“Did, uh. Did you finish your packet yesterday?”

“I, um. Looked at the packet a little bit,” Finn says. “That counts, right?”

“Does it feel a little too much like homework? I’d think it would.”

Finn breaths out and lies back on the bed. “I dunno. It’s confusing me. I feel… that thing, when there’s two different things you feel and they’re sort of opposite things.”

Kurt frowns a little. “Conflicted? Pulled in two opposing directions? Torn?”

Finn sighs. “Yeah. All of those. I think all of those. Guess I still need to finish reading it, though. Maybe that’ll help.”

Kurt reaches out for Finn’s hand almost tentatively and squeezes it. “Maybe.”

Finn squeezes back and smiles at Kurt, or tries to smile anyway. “You doing something fun today?”

“Moderately so. At the very least, it’s productive. More productive than futilely sitting around and hoping things will magically change.”

“Hey, if there’s one thing glee club taught me, it’s that things magically change for absolutely no reason,” Finn says. “And then we sing about it. Right?”

“I’ll prepare a musical number for your after-dinner entertainment, then,” Kurt laughs. 

“Bonus points for working in some classic rock,” Finn says. “Okay, I’m gonna go and read the thing now, maybe.” He stands up and grins at Kurt. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yes,” Kurt agrees. “Good luck!”

  


Kurt arrives at the Lima Bean fifteen minutes before he and Puck are scheduled to meet, so by the time Puck gets there—exactly on time—Kurt has his own coffee and Puck’s waiting for them on the table.

Puck grins and drops into his chair. “Hey, thanks.”

“It’s a congratulatory coffee drink,” Kurt explains. “Your plan is creating doubt.”

“Really?” Puck’s grin morphs into a smirk. “He said that?”

“Not in so many words, but he implied he was feeling conflicted about his packet of Army paperwork,” Kurt says. “And he seems… confused about some other things as well, which I think will work to our advantage.”

“If there’s paperwork, we should make it disappear,” Puck says seriously, then grins again. “But that’s awesome. So maybe we won’t have to do too much convincing.”

“Maybe not. Apparently your two moves are being better received than you initially thought,” Kurt says, and this time, he’s the one who smirks. “At least, that’s what I’ve been hearing from Finn, anyway.”

“Oh?” Puck returns the smirk. “Bet you enjoy that.”

“Well, _you’re_ the one who won’t kiss him,” Kurt points out. “I don’t see any obligation not to enjoy it, given that.”

“Well, I— wait.” Puck narrows his eyes. “Did _you_ kiss him?”

Kurt suppresses the urge to giggle. “Why? Would it bother you if I did?”

Puck opens his mouth to respond, then closes it and looks thoughtful. “Huh. I’m… not actually sure,” he admits.

“Very interesting. I thought this was all mission–oriented,” Kurt muses. “Maybe not?”

Puck moves uncomfortably. “Well. S’not like I’d be doing this for Mike or somebody.”

Kurt sighs and smiles at Puck. “I know you wouldn’t. And don’t worry, I didn’t kiss him. Well, on his cheek, but not in the way that I think he’s looking for.”

Puck grins wryly. “Yeah, he does sort of seem to need…” He trails off and shrugs. 

“Yes. He does sort of seem to need that,” Kurt agrees. “But as to whether or not that’s in the cards, well. I think we need to sort this part out, first, or it’s something of a non-issue, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Right.” Puck takes a drink of his coffee and opens his backpack. “Like I said, I got yours and mine from Ms. P, too. Congratulations, you’re not at all well-suited for being a pharmacist _or_ bank teller.”

“Shocking, really,” Kurt says. “Let me see yours!” Kurt holds his hand out for the papers, and Puck hands them over. Kurt scans the results and laughs. “And you are apparently not at all the right personality for professional dancing or dog grooming. Or florist. This test is very odd.”

“Who ever says ‘I want to be a florist’ anyway?” Puck laughs. “Yeah, it’s kinda weird.”

“Hmm, you seem to score high in the Artistic and Enterprising themes,” Kurt says. “Not surprising at all, though… elected public official? Really, Puck?” He shakes his head. “I think you should highly consider not going down that road.”

Puck grins. “You don’t think I could be the first president with a mohawk?”

  
[ ](http://i.minus.com/i2ZseZKdnUHzG.png)  


“We’ll just move right along,” Kurt mutters. “So, how are we going to do this? All sit down together and come up with a plan, which honestly, I think will just make Finn panic and bolt right back to the Army?”

“We’ve gotta convince him to let us plan his.” Puck frowns. “Give him the steps to take.”

“You know,” Kurt says. “I happen to disagree with Blaine. On a number of issues, obviously, but specifically on the topic of you and Finn. I think you’re perfectly capable of coming up with a plan for me.”

“So then you and Finn for me?” Puck shrugs and nods. “Yeah, that could work. No matter what that thing says, though, I’m not a diplomat either. I’d end up starting wars.”

“Darn, and that was going to be my first choice for you, too,” Kurt laments. “I think this is better, though. He won’t feel like we’re ganging up on him. He still has choices, they’re just not choices for himself. I think this might actually work.”

“Yeah, it’s just three dudes without a plan. No offense. Coming up with actual plans. We’ll have to figure out how we’re going to eat and pay rent and shit.”

“Oh, that’s the easy part, I’m sure,” Kurt says. “Shall I call Finn now and we can let him in on our little plan?”

“Yeah.” Puck grins. “Do that.”

Kurt doesn’t look up from the phone, but he doesn’t press the contact list, either. “And Puck? If you don’t kiss him, I might, so… figure that out.”

There’s no answer for a few beats, and then Puck responds. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“Very well then.” Kurt shrugs as he presses the button to dial. “We’ll just see what happens. Hi, Finn,” Kurt says into the phone. “I’m over at the Lima Bean. Why don’t you come join me?”

  


While they wait on Finn to arrive, Kurt gets Finn’s coffee, and Puck amuses himself by drawing stick figures representing the various jobs on Finn’s career inventory results. Then he blacks out the two lines for “Military Officer” and “Military Enlisted.”

When Finn walks into the Lima Bean and sees Puck, he looks extremely confused. “Uh, hey Puck. Have you seen Kurt?”

“He’s getting your coffee,” Puck answers, adding one final stick figure to the paper. He’s sure Finn will appreciate the mailman who is saying ‘Don’t hit me, bro!’ 

“So, uh, why are you here, too?” Finn asks, not sitting down.

Kurt approaches the table and hands Finn his coffee. “Sit down, Finn.”

Finn looks at Kurt, then he looks at Puck, then looks back at Kurt, then back at Puck, then he makes that stupid–face, and says, “Wait. Is this an intervention?”

“No,” Puck answers, straight-faced. “It’s a Finntervention.”

“What, uh, are you Finntervening me about?” 

“Dude, chill and sit down,” Puck retorts. “We’ll explain.”

Finn sits down, side-eyeing both Puck and Kurt, and he takes a sip of his coffee without looking away, like he’s expecting some kind of ambush or trap or something.

“Finn,” Kurt begins, in a soothing voice. “Puck and I both care about you very much.”

“Oh _shit_ ,” Finn says. “What kind of intervention is this gonna be?”

“Hush. Let me get through the spiel. Puck and I are both very concerned about some of your recent life choices,” Kurt continues. “Puck, would you like to outline some of our concerns for Finn?”

“Uh, sure.” Puck taps his finger on the stack of paper in front of him. “Other than the fact that you’re jumping into things with no clue what they’re like, we uh. Don’t want you to die.”

“Yes, exactly,” Kurt agrees, putting his hands together and nodding his head slightly, looking vaguely like Nana’s rabbi. “We don’t want you to die. We very much don’t want you to die.”

“I didn’t know I was dying,” Finn says, looking surprised and upset. “Was there some kind of blood test or something I don’t know about? Is it, like… _cancer_ or something?”

Puck looks at Kurt and shakes his head. “I told you. He doesn’t know how to Army.”

“Yes, I see your point,” Kurt says. “Finn, no, you don’t have cancer. What you do have, I’m afraid, is an unhealthy hero complex that is going to result in you getting shot, losing a limb, or developing PTSD. And honestly, that’s just our concerns about basic training.”

“Oh, is this about the Army thing?” Finn asks. He looks relieved, and Puck wonders what it was exactly that Finn thought the Finntervention might be about. “It’s not that big a deal, you guys. People join the Army all the time and most of them are just fine.”

“You’re not most people,” Puck shrugs. “I mean, first of all, you’re a bigger target.”

“And you don’t handle pain well, either,” Kurt adds. “Remember that time you dropped the tool box on your foot at the shop and jammed your toe? You _cried_ , Finn. We thought we were going to have to call 911.”

“That really hurt, okay? It surprised me. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Well, and how do you think you’ll feel when you get shot?” Kurt asks. “I imagine that’s considerably more surprising.”

“Phantom limb pain, dude,” Puck says, shaking his head slowly. “You can’t take anything for that.”

“Exactly,” Kurt says. “We really think the Army is a bad choice for you, Finn. We understand that you’re looking for some sort of honor redemption scenario in a place that isn’t Lima. We really do. However, we would be remiss if we let you go off and die if we had the power to stop you.”

“And trust us. We have the power to stop you,” Puck adds.

“Well… well… what else do you think I’m supposed to do?” Finn stammers. “I didn’t get into college, I don’t have any real skills, and I know Burt says I can work at the shop, but like you said about the tool box. I kinda knock stuff over a lot. So I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, if I don’t join the Army. I’m not good at anything useful.”

“Now you’re catching on. _You_ don’t have to know,” Puck says, then realizes that that might be even more confusing to Finn. “Uh, just let Kurt explain.”

“None of the three of us really know what we’re doing past this point,” Kurt says. “We’re all at something of a crossroads, none of our original plans have worked out, and I think the three of us could all use a little outside assistance. Puck and I came up with an idea that could help all three of us, and we wouldn’t have to do anything crazy like join the Army, and we wouldn’t have to be alone _or_ stuck in Lima. Does that sound interesting?”

Finn makes the stupid–face and nods his head slowly. “Okay. We’re all confused and we all need to figure stuff out, is what you’re saying?”

“Yes, exactly!” Kurt says. “Only, we think none of us have necessarily done the best job of planning for our _own_ futures. In fact, I’d say all three of us have failed rather abysmally.” He smiles bitterly. “I don’t think that’s precisely our own faults. _We_ weren’t trained all our lives for post-secondary education like some other people we know. Our parents all did the best they could, but they were all blue collar, rural Ohio single parents. I’m not sure they even gave college much thought until we were upperclassmen in high school.”

Puck’s never really thought about it like that before, but what Kurt says makes sense. People like Mike, his parents had a plan for him, and even if Mike didn’t follow that plan exactly, there was always that expectation that Mike would leave the state to go to college. Puck can’t even remember his ma mentioning college until this past year, when she told him there was no way he could afford to go, even if he miraculously got in somewhere. That was after someone told him the deadlines for OSU had passed, anyway. Puck didn’t realize that colleges like OSU had deadlines. 

“Well, so who’s gonna decide then, if we didn’t decide?” Finn asks. 

“We are, for each other. Like, Kurt and I for you, and you and me for Kurt, and you and Kurt for me.”

Finn snorts and rolls his eyes. “Kurt would never let us pick out his future for him, Puck. That’s crazy.”

“It was his idea!” Puck protests.

“It was,” Kurt agrees. He places his hand on top of Finn’s and pets it. “Remember how you told me this morning that you trust me?” Finn blushes and averts eye contact, but he nods. “Well, I trust you, too. What I was doing was obviously not working, so we’re all going to try something different.”

“Well, but how’s that gonna work?” Finn asks. “What if me and Puck decide to send you to New York, but you guys wanna send me to Florida?”

“No, it has to be the same city. That’s the deal. It will let us shares costs and provide a support system for each other. Puck and I have settled on New York City, but if you have a huge objection, we can entertain other possibilities.”

“So you just want us all to pack up and move to New York and live lives that we picked out for each other?” Finn asks. “That’s seriously the plan?”

“If you agree to it, yes,” Kurt says. 

“What do we have to lose?” Puck asks. “I mean, why not?”

Finn frowns, which is an interesting mix with the stupid–face. “I don’t know. What if we don’t like what gets picked out for us? Are we stuck doing that forever?”

“Well, we could give cohabitation a trial run over the summer,” Kurt says. “Maybe we could each take some classes or do some further training in the professional areas chosen for us, see if it will really be a good fit.”

“But you gotta give it a fair shake,” Puck says. “No ‘I did this for two days and it sucks’ or whatever. I mean, dude. We’re not going to have you become a garbage man or something.”

“No, it’s ‘sanitation worker’ according to the career inventory results,” Kurt clarifies. “But no, we won’t have you do that.” He takes Finn’s hand in his. “Finn, we don’t want you to make a mistake that you can’t take back. If you don’t like our plan, you still have the freedom to change your mind and do something else. You won’t be alone and you might even be happy. Besides,” he adds, with a small smile, “you’d get to tell _me_ what to do for a change!”

“Can I think about it?” Finn asks. “This is a lot of new information. And when do we have to decide each others’ jobs?” 

“Uh… a week!” Puck supplies. “Next Wednesday. We can, whatever that word is that Kurt uses, in a week. And not just jobs, we need like… steps to take.”

“Yes, individual goals to meet on the path to the main goal,” Kurt agrees. “We’ll come up with assignments for each other. It’ll be like homework, but fun! And no matter what, we get out of Lima.”

“Okay. Well, I’m gonna think about it,” Finn says. “I’m allowed to think about it for a day or two, right?”

“One day. We have to get started on the plans, dude,” Puck points out. 

“Okay. Yeah, I’ll think about it. Either way, uh. Thanks, you guys. For, you know. Caring,” Finn says. “Is there some kind of paperwork or something I should look at?”

“I got Ms. Pillsbury to give me all of our career inventory results,” Puck says. “It says I should be an elected public official, but not all of the suggestions are crap.” 

“Oh, yeah, probably that wouldn’t be the best job for you,” Finn says. “Okay, maybe I’ll wait to look at those until tomorrow, though. I think I’m gonna go home and, like, think about this.”

“I think I’ll call Mercedes or Tina and see if either of them would like to join me at the mall for the rest of the afternoon,” Kurt says. “We might even see a movie and get dinner out.”

Puck thinks that all of that information-sharing was a little too deliberate on Kurt’s part, though it works out nicely for Puck. He knows for sure it was deliberate when Kurt gives him a brilliant smile, then turns to Finn and says, “Have fun making up your mind!”

  


Finn fixes himself a large bowl of cereal and sits down at the kitchen table to think through this whole proposed change of plans. If he’s being really honestly with himself, he’s been having some doubts about this whole Army thing, but there’s really no way to just say, ‘hey I changed my mind’ without looking like a dumbass. He doesn’t really want to get shot at or shoot people. He doesn’t really want to move to Georgia, either, because the weather’s apparently really hot there.

On the one hand, it’s really cool that Kurt and Puck worked together to try to find something else for Finn to do. On the other other hand, it does sorta make it look like the whole thing with Puck’s been a dog bell trick, just like Finn thought it might’ve been. He’s not even gonna try to figure out what kinda trick the thing with Kurt might’ve been, because then stuff gets _really_ complicated. 

There’s a loud thumping on the front door, and when it stops, Finn can hear someone bang into the planter before Puck’s voice says “Ouch! Shit. Damn plant.”

Finn opens the front door. “Did the planter attack you again?”

“I told you, it doesn’t like me.”

“Yeah, that’s what you keep saying,” Finn says. “So, why’re you here?”

“Why not?” Puck shrugs, walking inside without an invitation. 

“Well, I mean, I’m supposed to be, you know. Like, thinking about stuff or whatever,” Finn says. “So I can decide.”

Puck shrugs again. “I’ll help you decide.”

“I thought the point was I was supposed to decide by myself. That was the point, right?”

“Call it, uh. Incentive, or something. Or distraction. Whichever you prefer.”

“Well, if I can’t make a decision by tomorrow, I’m pretty sure Kurt’ll be mad at both of us, dude,” Finn points out. “So, uh. Maybe you should go and I’ll sit back down and do some more thinking.”

Puck scoffs. “You’re seriously gonna think for twelve hours?” Puck sits down at the kitchen table and helps to himself to Finn’s bowl of cereal. “No way, dude.”

“ _Dude_ , that’s my cereal,” Finn says, “And, I dunno. Maybe I need twelve hours.”

Puck doesn’t respond, just eats more cereal before looking up. “So. I think you should fuck me. If you want to.”

“What?” Finn asks. “You think— what?!” He knows he’s probably staring at Puck with a stupid look on his face, but he’s really not sure how else he’s supposed to respond to that.

“You. Fucking me.” Puck shrugs and takes another bite of cereal. “Like I said. If you want to.”

“ _Dude_.” Finn keeps staring, because he’s still not sure what he’s supposed to say. “Do you even like me like that?”

Puck looks at him like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. “Sex, dude. I’m offering you sex. Different sex, anyway.”

“Yeah, but… seriously. Do you even like me like that? I mean, is this just how you’re trying to keep me from going in the Army?” Finn demands. “I mean, you don’t even _kiss_ me!”

“I’m not going to start kissing someone who’s _leaving_ ,” Puck says, like that should have been self-explanatory. 

“Well, I’m _not_ leaving, you idiot!”

Puck brightens a little. “Yeah? You decided?”

“Yes. Fine! You win! Just go… report back to Kurt or whatever!” Finn throws his hands in the air. “I won’t join the Army! Just stop trying to dog bell trick me into doing what you want me to do!”

Puck looks confused at last sentence, but he drops the spoon back into the bowl and stands up. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously,” Finn says. “I won’t go, but no more dog bell tri—” Puck crosses the room as Finn’s speaking, pushing Finn a little, just enough for Finn’s back to hit the wall, and then Puck kisses him. Well, okay then, maybe it’s not just a dog bell trick after all. Maybe Kurt was right.

Puck pulls back and shakes his head. “You’re an idiot,” he says affectionately.

“I’m very confused right now,” Finn confesses. “I gave Kurt a handjob this morning.”

Puck shrugs slightly, looking like something in his mind just clicked into place. “Okay.”

“None of this is very much like my normal life. Like, at all.”

“Maybe it’s like, a preview. Of your New York life.”

“My New York life has a lot of handjobs in it,” Finn says, feeling a little bit like a freakout might be just around the corner. 

“And that’s… somehow a bad thing?” Puck asks. 

“I don’t know!” Finn bursts out. “If you’d asked me a week ago, I’d have said _yes_ , it’s a bad thing!”

“Well, I’m not asking you a week ago,” Puck shrugs. “I’m asking you now. You who just said you were gonna come to New York, you who basically agreed to help Kurt and I both figure out what the hell _we’re_ doing.”

“I’m just really really confused right now,” Finn says, putting one hand over his face. “I mean, a week ago I was engaged… to a _girl_. And I thought I was gonna have this life, and now it’s just been a few days and it’s an entirely different life, and you know, maybe you and Kurt are, like, _there_ already, okay? But I’m not that smart. I need some, like, time or something.”

“Look, I know it’s… confusing or whatever,” Puck agrees. “But sitting in your kitchen eating cereal isn’t really gonna help.”

“What’s gonna help, Puck? I don’t know what’s gonna help.” Finn leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “I read this whole website that Kurt sent me to and I _still_ don’t understand what’s going on. And I can’t ask questions, ‘cause then I have to figure out what’s going on enough to know what to ask.”

Puck shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean. I guess it’s not that complicated in my head. Not enough brains to make it complicated, maybe?”

“Well what’s my excuse, then?” Finn asks. “If you don’t have enough brains, I mean… come on, dude, it’s _me_.”

“Too much brains? Or maybe just trying to think about it too hard?”

“I don’t think too much brains has ever been my problem, so, I dunno. Maybe the second one,” Finn says. 

“Probably not the best person to talk to,” Puck admits. “I didn’t think about it too long or anything.”

“Yeah, but you’re _you_ , dude. You do what you want and you don’t let other people’s shit bother you. I let everybody’s shit bother me.”

“Yeah, I never have figured that one out,” Puck says, grinning a little. 

“So how’s the not thinking too hard about it thing work, anyway?” Finn asks. 

Puck shrugs. “Kind of, you know. Oh. Okay. Dudes, too.” He shrugs again. “That was pretty much it.”

“That easy, huh?”

“Wasn’t like I suddenly decided I didn’t want girls, dude. Just expanded my pool of options or whatever.” Puck shrugs. “So, yeah. That easy.”

“I dunno, Puck,” Finn says, shaking his head. “I don’t know how to make it be that easy.”

“Just… go with it?” Puck suggests. “Just enjoy it, dude, and worry less about defining it.” Puck steps closer again, placing one palm on the wall beside Finn’s head. “No one’s making you pick a label or anything.”

“That’s not gonna be on my list of goals?” Finn asks, letting himself smile finally. 

“Nah, at least not for awhile,” Puck laughs. “Relax, Finn.”

“I’m relaxed.”

“Yeah?” Puck grins and closes the gap between them, kissing him again. Kurt was right about girls smelling different and feeling different; Finn couldn’t just close his eyes and pretend he’s kissing a girl. That doesn’t mean he wants to stop kissing Puck, though. Puck’s face is a little rough against Finn’s and his lips aren’t as soft as a girl’s, but he’s a good kisser, and Finn parts his lips as Puck runs his tongue over them.

Finn puts his hand on the side of Puck’s head, pushing his fingers into Puck’s hair the way he did when was Puck was sucking on him, and _that_ thought is enough to make Finn stop worrying so much, at least in the moment. He tugs on Puck’s hair, pulling him closer. 

Puck’s tongue pushes into Finn’s mouth, and Puck slides his leg between Finn’s, rocking in place. Finn moans against Puck’s lips and runs one of his hands down Puck’s back before pulling away enough to say, “We should go upstairs.”

“Yeah, okay,” Puck agrees.

“I’m not gonna fuck you,” Finn says. 

“Okay.” Puck nods a little, stepping back and towards the door.

“I mean, you know. Not _this_ time, anyway.”

Puck grins. “C’mon.”

  


Kurt hears the knock on his door and calls out, “Just come in, Finn. You can tell me the next installment in the story about your friend while I finish cleaning my face.”

The door opens, but Puck’s head appears. “No, Finn went to tell the recruiter to stuff it. Well, probably just to politely tell him no. I suggested he tell him that the recruiter can take his landmines and shove ‘em up his ass, but I bet Finn’ll skip that part.”

“So he’s decided to actually listen to us?” Kurt knows he sounds as excited and relieved as he feels. “Well, thank god. We can start making forward movement now!”

“Exactly.” Puck flops onto Kurt’s bed and lies back. “So I figured we could work on his plan now instead of later. I only have two pools to clean today.”

“Hmm. We can do that. I’ll finish with my face, you tell me what he said,” Kurt says over his shoulder. “Spare no details.”

“First of all, do you know what a ‘dog bell trick’ is?”

Kurt laughs. “Yes, I have a pretty good idea. I think he’s mixing up a few psychological concepts into one big mess, but it seems to boil down to him worrying that he’s being, how to put it… physically rewarded for letting you talk him out of joining the Army.”

“Huh.” There’s a pause before Puck continues. “Well, he kinda was,” he acknowledges. “Not _just_ that, but.”

“I think he thought it was just that. He was very preoccupied with the lack of kissing, anyway.”

“Yeah, well. After I told him he should fuck me, he started yelling, and then he was all, fine! I won’t join the Army.” Puck sounds almost disappointed when he continues. “He still didn’t fuck me, though.”

Kurt looks at Puck’s reflection in the mirror while he wipes off his face cleaner. “He didn’t want to?”

Puck shrugs. “He did say not _this_ time. But that was it.”

“So no more dog bell tricks, then?” Kurt shakes his head slightly as he spins his chair around so he can face Puck. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about _no_ more. I had to kinda talk him into not thinking so damn hard about it, you know what I mean?”

Kurt looks down at his nails with the best impression of disinterest he can manage. “So, the evening didn’t end with him yelling at you, then?”

Puck grins. “No, it didn’t end there.”

“Well, I guess that’s that, then? He got his kisses?”

“Kisses, yeah. What’s what?”

Kurt shrugs. “I suppose he’ll be less confused now and he won’t be entertaining me daily with the stories of his ‘friend’ and his complicated relationship, or lack thereof, with _his_ ‘friend’.” Kurt sighs. “Too bad. I was rather enjoying it.”

“So I heard.” Puck rolls onto his side, propping his head on his hand. “Please. You’ve met Finn. He’s still confused. It’s not, you know.” He shrugs. “Exclusive?”

“Please. _You_ have met Finn, too,” Kurt says. “He’s probably exactly the same with boys as with girls. Treat him as badly as you want and you’ll still never get rid of him.”

“Right. Quinn, Rachel. Rachel, Quinn. Like a high-bounce ball.”

“But _only_ the two of them. Maybe he just likes variety and couldn’t quite figure that out with Quinn and Rachel, not that I can picture either of them agreeing to something like that,” Kurt says. 

Puck narrows his eyes a little. “Are you suggesting…?”

Kurt suppresses a laugh. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just pointing out one of my many, many theories on Finn Hudson’s complicated psychology. I just want him to be happy,” he says, with a smile. “And, well, the three of us may very well be living together for the next few weeks, months, possibly years. Happy Finn is good for all of us, right?”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Puck says almost lazily. 

“Oh?”

“Doesn’t really seem fair for only one of us to benefit from the living arrangements, does it?” Puck asks. 

“Well, I guess it isn’t, really,” Kurt concedes. “What did you have in mind?”

“I could show you.” Puck grins.

Kurt laughs out loud. “You boys sure do like to show me things,” he says, shaking his head. 

Puck shrugs. “Well?”

“Demonstration or audience participation?”

“Oh, definitely participation.”

“Then, sure. Show me,” Kurt says. He walks towards the bed and stands by the side of it. Puck grabs his hand and pulls him onto the bed. 

“You have, uh. Limits?” Puck asks. 

“Why? Are you showing me something that requires a safe word?”

Puck grins. “Not this time. Just checking.”

“It’s not my first time at the rodeo, so to speak,” Kurt says. “So hold off on the _really_ kinky stuff, but otherwise, no limits.”

“Oh, good.” Puck wraps his arm around Kurt’s waist and flips them over, leaning over Kurt and kissing him rather forcefully. Kurt hooks one of his legs around Puck’s and arches his body up into the kiss, both of his hands on Puck’s back. Puck grinds down against Kurt, one hand starting to remove Kurt’s T-shirt. Kurt lifts his upper body off the bed and raises his arms, letting Puck pull the shirt over his head, and then he starts pulling Puck’s shirt off, too.

  
[ ](http://i.minus.com/igvR3kET3kuU0.png)  


Puck pulls back and sweeps his eyes over Kurt, grinning a little, then slides his fingers under the waistband of Kurt’s pants and underwear, slowly tugging them down. Kurt raises his hips to help, and Puck pulls them the rest of the way off, tossing them in the floor, before unfastening his jeans and pushing them off. Kurt is not even remotely surprised that Puck goes commando; he’d probably have been more surprised if Puck had actually had something on under his jeans.

“Where’s your stuff?” Puck asks, wrapping one hand around Kurt’s cock and pumping his hand up and down.

“Decorative box, bookshelf.” 

“Creative,” Puck nods, climbing off the bed to find the box. “Inconvenient, but creative.”

“Believe me, convenience hasn’t been the most pressing issue,” Kurt sighs. “I might reconsider location for the future.”

“That sucks,” Puck says. “Or sucked, I guess.” He pours just a bit of the lube on his hand, then wraps it around Kurt’s cock again. “You wanna fuck me?”

“Oh, fuck yes,” Kurt says. His hand finds Puck’s cock and he strokes it slowly. “Hand me a condom and roll over.”

Puck does exactly as instructed, keeping his hand moving on Kurt’s cock as best he can. Kurt runs his hand down Puck’s back, over the curve of his ass, and down his thigh. Puck moves into the motion, grunting quietly. Kurt picks up the bottle of lube and pours some into his hand, then touches one fingertip to Puck’s entrance experimentally. 

“Yeah, that’s good,” Puck says, rocking his hips a little. Kurt pushes his finger inside Puck, putting his other hand around Puck’s cock and moving both hands slowly. Puck makes a low-pitched mewling noise, and Kurt pushes his finger all the way inside, leaning forward to kiss along Puck’s spine. 

“More?” Kurt asks him, his lips still against Puck’s skin. 

“Fuck, yeah,” Puck answers quickly. “M’not gonna break.”

“Novel concept,” Kurt says, mostly to himself, sliding his finger out and pushing two back inside Puck a little more forcefully, moving his hand faster and tightening his grip on Puck’s cock. 

“Yeah, like that,” Puck says, his breathing a little more shallow. Kurt curls his fingertips slightly as he moves his fingers in and out of Puck, and Puck shudders in place, his hips pushing up. “Fuck!”

Kurt kisses and then nips at Puck’s back. “Just tell me when you’re ready for me to fuck you,” Kurt says. He adds a third finger, feeling Puck stretch around him, his forehead resting against Puck’s back. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Now is good,” Puck hisses. “Now is very good.”

“Yes, now is very good,” Kurt agrees. He pulls his fingers out of Puck and quickly tears open the condom package, rolling the condom down his cock. He holds onto Puck’s hip with one hand and uses the other to position the head of his cock at Puck’s entrance. His fingers tighten on Puck’s hip as he pushes inside hard. “Oh my god, that’s good,” Kurt breathes. “Puck, you feel so good.”

“Yeah, you too,” Puck gasps. “Fuck, you’re bigger than I would’ve guessed. S’good.”

Kurt giggles. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Oh, no.” Puck rocks his hips a little. “Thank you.”

Kurt thrusts forward into Puck. “Never would have—oh, fuck, you’re tight—pegged you for a size queen.”

“Been a couple of months,” Puck grunts. “Everyone’s got. A few surprises, right?”

“Mmm, yes. And Finn said _no_ to this?” Kurt moves the hand on Puck’s hip around to Puck’s cock. 

“Can’t explain it,” Puck agrees, moving with Kurt. “Crazy. Fuck, you can go faster if you want to.”

Kurt does want to, so he thrusts a little harder, moving fast and speeding his hand up to keep pace. “I’ll have to. Have a little talk with him. About that. Fuck, yes, he’s crazy. He’d love this.”

“You two can take numbers,” Puck tosses out. 

“Does he meet the size queen’s, ah. _God_. Approval?”

“Yeah. _Fuck, right there._ ”

Kurt repeats the roll of his hips. “There?” Puck groans loudly and nods. “Good. Tell me about yesterday. After the yelling and the kissing.”

“Thought you said nothing too kinky yet,” Puck says, then groans again. “Fuck. Finn said we should go upstairs—we were in the kitchen—and when we got to his room, Finn started to take my jeans off.”

“It’s not kinky. Talking about each other, that’s. Damn. That’s what we all do, apparently.” Kurt slows down his movements, because he’s getting closer than he wants, and he’d like to hear the story first. He keeps stroking Puck’s cock in time to his thrusts, though. “What happened then?”

“Stuck his hand in my jeans,” Puck gasps. “We were still kissing. He wrapped his hand around me, started moving it. So I got his jeans unfastened.”

“Then what?”

“Grabbed him, started jerking him off. Fuck, wouldn’t stop kissing. Took a minute or two before we got into a good rhythm.” 

“He was touching you, too?” Kurt asks, moving his hand faster on Puck’s cock. “He showed me how he did it, you know that? Showed me how he jerked you off before.” He rolls his hips again. “He was so awkward. It was sweet. Hot.”

“Still so tentative,” Puck agrees. “But, fuck. Ohh, fuck. How many— how many people worried about you instead of them, right?”

“Not many. Not anybody else, really. Fuck, I’m close.” Kurt’s hand moves erratically on Puck’s cock and he thrusts harder, biting his lip. “All he wanted was for me to listen. It’s all he asked for.”

Puck tightens around Kurt. “Yeah, me too. Fuck that’s good, harder, Kurt.”

Kurt nods to himself and slams his hips forward. His hand flies over Puck’s cock and then Kurt starts to come with a high-pitched yell. His hand keeps moving on Puck, and Puck stiffens before he comes, groaning a low, drawn-out ‘fuck’. Kurt lets his body go limp, leaning against Puck’s back, both of them breathing heavily.

“Well,” Kurt says. “That was… interesting.”

“I was gonna say pretty awesome, but.”

“Awesome, too. But also interesting.” Kurt slowly slides out of Puck and rolls onto his back beside him. “Poor Finn.”

“Huh?” Puck says, turning his head to look at Kurt. “Why?”

Kurt starts to giggle. “He just has _no_ idea what he’s in for, does he? I mean, if he was that shy and awkward about a handjob?” 

Puck chuckles. “Maybe we should spring some of it on him after we get to New York.”

“Or just one at a time until he gets used to everything,” Kurt suggests. “Poor, poor Finn.”

“You’re right, though,” Puck says. “He just wants someone to listen. Tell him he’s good enough. Appreciate him.” Puck grins. “Or two someones.”

“He still thinks I have no idea about the two of you. He keeps talking about his ‘friend’ and I don’t have the heart to tell him he’s the worst liar, literally the worst, I have ever met. It seems to make him happier not to admit it, though,” Kurt sighs. “I guess I’ll keep playing along for now?”

“Yeah, I told him he didn’t have to have a label or anything.” Puck shrugs. “Get him out of Lima and it’ll be easier, I bet.”

“Everything’ll be easier, or at least better, once we’re out of Lima,” Kurt agrees. “Now I’m going to take a shower, which is what I was about to do before you interrupted me, so you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

Puck laughs. “You don’t want to talk about your uniform fetish?”

“It’s not a _fetish_. It’s a predilection. Now shoo.”

“Kicking me out,” Puck sighs, sitting up and grabbing his jeans. “I see how it is. See you this afternoon? Gotta give Finn his paperwork and shit.”

“Absolutely. All that paperwork. He’ll be thrilled.”

“We’ll remind him that no plan is without some pain?” Puck picks up his T-shirt. “Later.”

  


Puck’s backpack is getting fatter, which seems wrong, considering it’s summer, but while he was out cleaning the day’s pools, he passed an apartment complex that said it had vacancies, so he picked up a flier, and then he went to Wal-Mart for more pool chemicals and few new T-shirts. While he was there, he saw a book in the check-out line about reaching goals or whatever, so he paid four bucks for it, too.

He’s the first one at the Lima Bean, though, so he stakes out one of the larger tables. Kurt arrives not much later, pulling out a chair and hanging his satchel over the back of it. “Where’s Finn?” Puck says with a nod. 

“Counter. Insisted on buying all of us coffee for ‘not wanting him to die’ or something like that,” Kurt says, gesturing towards the counter. “I wonder what the people who want him to die get?”

“Liver. Liver and onions.” Puck grins. “That’s the most disgusting thing I can think of, anyway.”

“Tripe,” Kurt says, shaking his head. “Or possibly the breakfast burritos from the gas station that my dad used to eat every morning before the heart attack. I think they were made of donkey.”

Puck laughs. “Ass. That’s a good one.”

Finn hurries to the table with an armful of drinks. “Kurt, here’s your nonfat mocha. Puck, I got you that cold thing with the chocolate syrup on the top. That’s right, right? It looks like what you’ve been drinking, anyway.”

“Yeah, it’s too hot for hot coffee after being outside all day,” Puck agrees. Finn looks at his cup of hot coffee and shrugs. Puck raises an eyebrow. “You been outside all day?”

“I was outside for part of the day,” Finn says.

“Yeah, I made it inside the Wal-Mart for a bit.” Puck shrugs. “Okay, what first?”

“Well, I suppose we should make Finn make his official declaration of being on board with the plan,” Kurt suggests. “Finn, you’re in?”

Finn nods. “I’m in. No more Army.”

“Were we serious about finding a place around here for the summer?” Puck asks. “’Cause I passed a place today.” He unzips his backpack and finds the flier. “Furnished studios. $385 a month.”

“All of us in one room?” Kurt asks, raising his eyebrows. “Goodness, do you think we’ll manage?” He cuts his eyes over to Puck and Puck can see he’s barely resisting the urge to smirk or laugh.

“Gonna have to, right?” Puck grins. “Not like we can afford a three-bedroom in Manhattan.”

“I can sleep on the floor. Or a couch. Or maybe we could hang up hammocks,” Finn says.

“I’m sure we’ll find a way to manage, Finn. Don’t worry.” Kurt continues to look like he’s forcing himself not to giggle.

“Yeah, but not hammocks,” Puck says. “I veto hammocks.”

“I agree. No hammocks. That could get complicated, all those ropes,” Kurt says.

“Sometimes rope’s useful,” Puck says blandly. “Okay, so. We’ll go check this place out tomorrow or this weekend or something?”

“I’m free tomorrow. Finn?”

Finn nods. “Yeah, tomorrow’s good. I kinda don’t have any plans at all, now that I’m not, you know. Army.”

“Cool.” Puck puts the flier back in his backpack. “I’m apparently the filing cabinet. Here’s my career inventory thing.” He pushes it towards them. “And here’s Kurt’s.”

“What’s an archivist? Is that like an arch rival or something?” Finn asks, looking at Kurt’s results. “Kurt, do you want to be someone’s arch rival as a career option?”

“No, no, an _archivist_ ,” Kurt says, correcting Finn’s pronunciation. “And no. Not particularly.”

“Me and Puck will figure something out for you that’s great, though, I promise,” Finn says. “If there’s anything you really, really don’t want to do, though, you should write it down, just in case.”

“Stripper. Prostitute. Barista. Wal-Mart greeter. Wedding planner; once was enough. Interior designer, because I’m not that kind of gay,” Kurt lists. “Rodeo rider. Midwife is probably out.”

“That’s a long list of jobs I probably wouldn’t have ever thought of,” Finn say, looking impressed. “I’m not even sure what that last one is, ‘cause I don’t think you should be any kind of wife.”

“Baby–having nurse, I think,” Puck answers. “Too many vaginas for Kurt, I’m guessing.”

“Precisely. Plus, the mess.” Kurt wrinkles his nose. “And the hours.”

“I don’t want to do that rodeo thing either,” Finn says. “If you’re taking notes, you should put that down.”

“I don’t want to be a dental hygienist,” Puck offers. “I don’t know why that’s ‘social’ anyway. No one can talk to you if you have your hands in their mouth.”

“You can’t talk with your mouth full, that’s very true,” Kurt says, straight-faced. “Wouldn’t you agree with that, Finn?”

“Uh.” Finn’s face turns red. “Yeah?” 

Puck takes a long sip of his coffee so he doesn’t start to laugh. “Also,” he says finally. “No teaching. That sounds like hell. Being stuck back in high school year after year.”

“Agreed. No teaching for me, either,” Kurt says. “Finn, do you any deep desire or aversion to teaching?”

“I think maybe parents wouldn’t want me to try to teach their kids, like, math or Spanish or anything,” Finn says. “So maybe no teaching.”

“Anything else, any of us?” Kurt asks. 

“Maybe something where my mom could be proud of me,” Finn says. 

Puck shrugs. “I like old people like my Nana. But I don’t know that that’s a career thing.”

“Okay, then I guess we’ll break and start discussing ideas for each other. I call dibs on Finn for now,” Kurt says, “since I would imagine you’ll be over later anyway.”

“Yeah, okay,” Puck grins, standing up. “Plan something good for me.” He shifts his gaze just to Kurt. “Have fun.”

  


“Despite what Puck said, I agree that I can’t really picture him making a career out of something with old people,” Kurt says as they drive towards their house.

“Everybody likes their grandmas,” Finn agrees. “That doesn’t mean everybody likes other people’s grandmas.”

“It’s something of a long shot, I suppose, but he really should do something with music.”

“I like it when he sings hippie songs to me,” Finn says. “You know, when he does that. Sometimes. For absolutely no reason.”

Kurt grins. “No reason, huh? But regardless, there should be some performance opportunities in New York, I would think.”

“He could play at, like, bars or something, right?” Finn asks. “And maybe he could take some lessons or classes about music. I think he’d like that.”

“And shave off the mohawk,” Kurt insists. “Otherwise the bouncers at the bars will think he’s a hoodlum to remove.”

“Aww. I like the mohawk,” Finn says. “Can we make him grow regular hair to replace it?”

“We’ll put it farther down the list,” Kurt suggests. “And you know I’m right.”

“I just don’t want you to be right. Maybe we’ll have him grow out the rest of his hair instead of shaving off the mohawk,” Finn argues.

Kurt shrugs as they pull into the garage. “Also a possibility. I’m just considering image alongside other factors.”

“People with shaved heads can be hoodlums, too. They’re hoodlums all the time! I just can’t agree to shaving it being put on the list.”

“Okay. But we _do_ need to consider image. Deal?”

“Only a deal if there’s no head–shaving,” Finn insists.

“I said okay,” Kurt says mildly, turning off the engine and climbing out. “Any other parts of this you feel very strongly about?”

Finn’s forehead wrinkles in thought for a moment. “Nope. Not that strongly.”

“So, then. Our initial thoughts are having him play regularly, take classes, and something to do with image?”

“Clothes. You should help him find some better clothes,” Finn says. “‘Shopping with Kurt’ should be on his list of assignments.”

“Hmm, yes.” Kurt nods. “Some sort of practice requirement, probably, too.”

“He can practice his hippie songs anytime he wants to.”

Kurt giggles. “I meant a minimum amount of time daily.”

“Yeah, I meant that, too,” Finn says. “Definitely. But the hippie songs are good, uh. Lullabies.”

“Well, we shouldn’t have an issue with insomnia, then.” Kurt grins as they walk through the main floor and then up the stairs. “So… your ‘friend’.”

Finn gives Kurt a crooked smile. “You aren’t tired of hearing about that yet?”

Kurt averts his eyes for a moment. “No. Not yet.”

“All the stuff you’ve told me has been really helpful,” Finn says. “For my friend.”

“Good. I’m glad.” Kurt walks into his room and drops his satchel in the floor near his desk. 

“We can talk about it later, if you’ve got other stuff to do. I don’t wanna be a bother or anything.”

“You’re not,” Kurt says quickly. “Really. I’m happy to help.”

“Okay. As long as it doesn’t bother you,” Finn says. He sits down on the end of Kurt’s bed. “So, the kissing thing. You remember how that bothered my friend, right?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“So, uh. My friend, he’s not moving away anymore, and that changes the rules, I guess.”

“Did it?” Kurt asks, trying not to sound too knowing or too smug. He’s not really sure how long he can continue letting Finn think he’s actually managed to conceal his identity. Especially today, when he knows what happened already, it’s hard not to let on.

Finn nods. “Yeah, so, I guess my friend’s friend, he wasn’t kissing my friend because my friend was leaving. And he said he doesn’t kiss people who are leaving.”

“A somewhat understandable position to take, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I guess I’d be sad if someone were leaving and maybe, you know. I wouldn’t want to kiss them, either. I mean, if I felt that way about them. Not that I’m saying for sure anybody feels any way about anybody, just, you know.” Finn sighs. “But now, there’s kissing. And you were totally right about the girl thing, I think.”

“The girl thing?” Kurt repeats, mystified.

“Yeah, remember? We were talking about, what if like you and Tina, right? And you said even if you were drunk and your eyes were closed, you didn’t think you could, you know. Get off. Because of how girls smell different and sound different and their hands feel different,” Finn explains. “That’s totally true.”

“Oh, yes.” Kurt nods. “I remember. Your ‘friend’ discovered this, I take it?”

“Yeah. Kissing a guy? Totally not the same at all.”

“No,” Kurt murmurs in agreement. “It’s not. Though. Not all guys are the same, either.” Kissing Blaine had been different—better—than kissing Brittany, though not as different from kissing Brittany as kissing Puck is. 

“Yeah, not all girls are the same, either, but this was, like, _way_ different,” Finn says. “I mean, there’s the whole, you know. Stubble thing. It’s kind of scratchy, but not in a bad way. That’s different from girls. Do you like it? The stubble thing?”

Kurt can feel himself flushing a little, because they’re more or less discussing kissing the same guy, though Finn doesn’t realize it. “I do,” Kurt admits. 

“I bet your face isn’t that scratchy, though,” Finn says. “Your hair’s really super soft, so I bet your face is soft, too. Like you said, not all the same, right? But I still bet it’s probably really different from a girl.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily know,” Kurt says, “seeing as I’ve never kissed myself.”

“Blaine never told you what it felt like to kiss you?” Finn asks. “That seems like something somebody should have told you.”

“Hmm, well.” Kurt shrugs slightly. “I have three words for you, Finn. Scheduled make-out sessions.”

“Seriously? He scheduled them?” Finn looks horrified. “He didn’t want to kiss you all the time?”

“Apparently not, no.” Kurt sighs. 

“Then he was a bigger dumbass than I thought, and I already thought he was kind of a pretty big dumbass,” Finn declares. “Mostly because of the pants, but now mainly because of this.”

Kurt puts his hand over his mouth as he laughs. “I tried very hard to get him to buy pants that fit properly.”

“I mean, he was so short, Kurt. How were his pants not long enough?”

“I suspected him of taking them to the tailor to be hemmed, actually,” Kurt confesses. “I never could find any proof, but he never wore something sooner than a week after purchase.”

“And he didn’t want to kiss you all the time?”

“No,” Kurt confirms quietly. “He didn’t.”

“Well, that’s bullshit. He was a crappy boyfriend.” Finn scowls. “I mean, my friend? That guy’s not even his boyfriend, and he still kissed him, because. I don’t know. I guess because he wanted to.”

“It does appear that he was,” Kurt agrees.

“Well, _I_ want to,” Finn says, his face turning slightly pink.

“Oh.” Kurt smiles slightly. “I… wouldn’t object.”

“If you want, I can just tell you some more about my friend,” Finn offers. “I don’t want this to be weird or anything, just.” He touches his fingertips to Kurt’s face, tracing down his cheek. “Yeah, softer.”

“Weird just means a little different,” Kurt says softly, leaning into Finn’s touch. “Doesn’t mean bad.”

“I’m still really confused,” Finn says, lowering his head until his forehead is resting against Kurt’s, his hand cupping Kurt’s cheek. He tilts his face up and gently touches his lips to Kurt’s. “See?” he says. “He should’ve kissed you more.”

“Yes,” Kurt breathes. “His loss.” He brings his lips against Finn’s a second time, with a little more pressure than Finn used. Finn’s lips part slightly and the tip of his tongue touches Kurt’s upper lip for a brief moment. Kurt runs his tongue lightly along Finn’s lips, bringing one hand to rest gently on the back of Finn’s head. Finn’s arms encircle Kurt’s waist and pull him closer. 

Kurt slides his tongue into Finn’s mouth, letting his fingers tangle in Finn’s hair, and he hears Finn making soft almost–whimpers as they continue kissing. When Kurt pulls away, he rests his forehead against Finn’s. 

“Different?” he says quietly.

“Good–different,” Finn answers. “Do, uh. Do you want – I can show you again. If you want me to.”

“I’d like that,” Kurt confesses.

Finn nods and starts unfastening Kurt’s pants, frowning as he tries to get the button through the hole. Once he undoes the button and lowers the zipper, he gently tugs the pants down Kurt’s hips. 

Kurt lifts his hips enough to help with the process, biting on his lower lip. “Keep going,” Kurt says softly. “Just take them off.”

Finn responds with a faint half–smile and carefully pulls Kurt’s pants down his legs, letting them drop to the floor. Kurt returns the smile, putting one arm around Finn’s shoulders. Finn leans in to kiss him again, his fingers brushing against Kurt’s cock. Kurt parts his lips under Finn’s, wondering how Finn will respond, and moves his hips up, his cock chasing Finn’s fingers. Finn’s hand wraps around Kurt’s cock at the same time his tongue pushes into Kurt’s mouth, and Kurt can feel more than hear the whimper he makes. 

Finn’s other arm curls around Kurt’s waist again, the hand on Kurt’s cock moving slowly. Kurt pushes into Finn’s hand, his tongue darting out and sliding against Finn’s, and he whimpers again. Finn seems to take that as a sign to move his hand faster and to kiss Kurt harder. Kurt’s fingers tug at Finn’s hair, and he moves his hips faster as well. Finn whines into Kurt’s mouth, and Kurt puts his other hand down Finn’s pants, under his underwear, and wraps his hand around Finn’s cock as best he can without unfastening Finn’s jeans at all. 

Finn yelps and rocks his hips forward, and the extra sensory input of how Finn feels and sounds is enough to cause Kurt to start to come, hips still moving and his hand pumping on Finn’s cock. Finn crushes his mouth against Kurt’s, moaning into the kiss, his tongue in Kurt’s mouth, and then Finn comes, spilling all over Kurt’s hand. 

Kurt pulls away from the kiss slowly, resting his head against Finn’s shoulder. “Finn?”

“Yeah, Kurt?” 

“If you, uh. Want to do that at an _un_ scheduled time. That’s fine with me.” 

Finn presses his face into Kurt’s hair and inhales, then exhales slowly. “I think there’s something wrong with anybody who’d only want to do that with you on a schedule,” he says into the top of Kurt’s head. “You oughta be wanted all the time.”

Kurt smiles. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me, Finn. Possibly one of the nicest things anyone’s said to me.”

“I’m sorry. I wish I’d said nicer things to you than that,” Finn says. “And I’m really sorry other people haven’t.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s a very nice thing.” Kurt closes his eyes. “We should clean up,” he says, but he makes no move to get up. He feels something being set on his leg, and Kurt grins a little. “Thank you.” He pulls a few tissues from the box and then discards the used ones off the side of the bed, feeling almost naughty for _that_ , of all things.

  


Puck shows up after dinner, still carrying his guitar around with him, even though Finn already agreed not to join the army and Puck doesn’t really have to play hippie songs to convince him. Not that the hippie songs had anything to do with that, but Finn does kinda like them. Finn makes them sit in the living room with his laptop, instead of going up to Finn’s room, because he’s sure they wouldn’t get much done if they just went right upstairs.

They can always go upstairs later. 

“So, is there another school that Kurt could go to for his musicals stuff?” Finn asks. “I Googled for ‘musical schools in New York’ and got all kinds of weird stuff.”

“Does he need to _go_ to school?” Puck asks. “I thought school was for, like, when you weren’t ready to start performing yet.”

“I don’t know. I think he’s already really good, but he doesn’t have a lot of, you know. Stuff? Like, a resume,” Finn says. “Blaine was always trying to get him to do all sorts of weird music things to build his resume.”

“Yeah, so we should do the opposite of whatever Anderson said, I think,” Puck snorts. “Seriously, what if Kurt just auditioned for stuff. Maybe private voice lessons or something? Don’t Broadway people do that?”

“Rachel had all that stuff. Voice lessons and dance classes and all of that. That probably means it’s something Broadway people do.”

“Maybe Kurt was right about the blue-collar single parent thing.” Puck shrugs. “Just seems like that’d be a better thing to pay for.”

“How are we gonna pay for all this stuff, though?” Finn asks. “I mean, if we’re all having to do all these steps, will ‘get a job and pay for stuff’ be part of the steps? Do we need to pick out jobs for each other to work while we’re doing the other stuff? I mean, I guess if the goal is just a job, then the steps are just, you know, get the job.”

Puck frowns. “Guess it depends on how much time the different steps take, right? Like, if one of us does go to college, he could still work part-time or whatever.”

“But are any of us gonna go to college, though?” Finn asks. “If you don’t think Kurt needs it, then that just leaves you and me, and dude, I couldn’t even get into college, remember? I tried and I failed. Maybe _you_ should go.”

“You applied to one college. Not all of ‘em.” Puck shrugs. “Dunno. Guess we have to see what everyone’s doing before we shake out the money part.”

“Well, I think that Kurt was right to want to do the Broadway thing. I want him to be famous,” Finn says. “Don’t you want him to be famous?”

“Sure. Question is just the best way to get there, I guess.” He makes a face. “Isn’t that school like, tiny? There’s a lot of shows on Broadway at any time, right?”

“I think so. There’s also the shows on the next street over, too.”

“So they can’t all be JUST people from that school.” Puck nods to himself. “Yeah, Kurt should just, you know. Audition. Practice.”

“So, just try out for things all the time until he gets something?” Finn rolls that thought around in his head for a moment. “Probably less boring than classes about how to try out for things.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah. We can, I don’t know. Give him assignments. ‘Prepare a solo’ or something.”

“One of those things where it’s just one person talking. Mono-whatevers!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Puck agrees enthusiastically. “That’s what he has to do until we leave. Practice acting and singing and take some classes. Then he’ll be ready to audition when we get there.”

“We should make up characters for him and he has to stay in character, like, _all day_ ,” Finn suggests. He could probably make up some great characters for Kurt. 

“Maybe just a few hours at a time,” Puck says. “Like, if we go out to get a pizza or something.”

“He could be, like, a foreign exchange student from France! Or some douchey hockey player. A straight douchey hockey player,” Finn says. “That’s an awesome idea. That would be so cool.”

Puck laughs. “Are we gonna make him eye up some boobs?”

“That would be funny,” Finn says, and then he figures, well, he told Puck before, so he should probably keep it all on the level and tell him this time, too. “So, uh. I gave him a handjob again.”

“Yeah?” Puck looks interested. “You have fun?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, he gave me one back, but I think maybe it would’ve been yeah anyway,” Finn says. “See, I’m working on the not thinking too deep about it thing.”

Puck laughs. “Working better?” 

“It helps if I stay busy.”

Puck looks thoughtful for a moment. “So I let him fuck me this morning,” he finally says.

 _That_ was not what Finn expected. “Oh,” he says. “Uh. You have… fun?”

“Yeah,” Puck nods, smirking a little. “I did. You’re missing out, dude, with your ‘not this time’.” He shrugs. “But right, not thinking about it too much.”

“So, what’s that mean?” Finn asks, not sure he really wants the answer if the answer is ‘Puck’s just going to be hooking up with Kurt now’. 

“It means… Kurt and I fucked?” Puck says quizzically. “Just letting you know we closed the circle.”

“There was a circle?” Finn tilts his head to the side and kind of squints at Puck to see if he can make that make any sense. “But it’s closed now.”

Puck picks up two candleholders and a little ceramic boy up off the mantel. “Okay, so here’s you, and me, and Kurt,” he says, setting each of them down in turn. “So you and I, here,” he says, pointing at the two candleholders. “And then you and Kurt, and then me and Kurt,” he says, sliding the three things into a triangle. “See? Closed the circle. Everybody with everybody. But not all at once.” Puck grins and mutters something under his breath, then sits back.

“That’s a triangle,” Finn points out. “And, I dunno. You know about all of it and _I_ know about all of it, but Kurt doesn’t know about you and me. What if he doesn’t like it? What if he gets mad? I’m pretty sure this whole plan falls apart if Kurt walks, dude.”

“No, you’re right,” Puck agrees. “Except. Dude. Kurt’s not stupid. I think he figured out who your ‘friend’ was the first day. He knows.”

“But he didn’t say anything!” Finn insists. “And he keeps letting me talk about, you know, my ‘friend’, and do you think he’d let me talk about that if he— hey! If he figured it out on the first day…"

Puck laughs. “What?”

“Well, that would mean that he knew it was me and you, and he still liked hearing about it,” Finn says. “I mean, I thought maybe he just thought it was generically hot, or maybe he was imagining, I dunno. That werewolf guy he likes. But… he wasn’t? If he knew it was me and you I was talking about?”

“Yeah, he totally gets off on it,” Puck grins. “You know what else?”

Finn’s still trying to go back over all his conversations with Kurt from the last few days and apply this new information to them, but he asks, “What else?”

Puck shrugs. “We talked about you.”

“Yeah, you guys talked about me a lot, I guess. You came up with this whole plan and the Finntervention thing.”

“No, I mean.” Puck chuckles. “While we were fucking.”

“You talked about the Finntervention while you were fucking?”

“No, about _you_ , dumbass. Why you didn’t want to fuck me. How big you are. That kind of thing.”

Finn’s face turns red and his mouth gets really dry. “You, uh. Talked about that?”

“Yep.” Puck smirks. “We did.”

Finn’s face turns even redder and he has to look away from Puck if he’s gonna manage to keep talking to him. “You liked it?”

“Yep.” Puck keeps smirking. “You want me to tell you about it? What Kurt and I did?”

“Probably not in the living room,” Finn says. He stands up and starts walking towards the stairs. 

Puck laughs behind him. “No, probably not.”

  


Friday is a four–pool day, which means by the time Puck’s supposed to meet Kurt, before they meet Finn to look at that furnished apartment, he feels drenched, so he texts Kurt to meet at the Dairy King instead of the Lima Bean, to get milkshakes.

Puck’s not sure what kind of milkshake Kurt gets, though, so he just orders his own, after stopping in the bathroom to splash cold water on himself. Once his milkshake is ready, he sits down at a table and waits. 

When Kurt arrives, he heads straight for the counter to order his shake, then perches in the seat across from Puck. Kurt wrinkles his nose. “Hot day?”

“Yeah,” Puck groans, slurping at his shake. “I promise, I really do shower.”

“No time between work and here?” Kurt asks “We could have moved it back if you needed to.”

“It’s fine.” Puck shrugs. “The apartment people won’t be there all the time, anyway. Oh, so. I told Finn that you knew.”

Kurt raises his eyebrows as he takes a sip of his milkshake. “Oh? And how did he take the news?”

“He looked confused. No, wait, that was after I told him you and I fucked. He got all worked up about how if you knew who he was talking about, then why did you let him keep telling you details?” Puck smirks. “Apparently he thought you were imagining Taylor Lautner.”

“Oh my,” Kurt says. “I hope he understands I was just trying to help him preserve his dignity, since he didn’t seem ready to actually make any ‘I’ statements about the situation. I wonder if that means the stories will stop.”

Puck laughs. “I didn’t say he was mad. And I doubt it, since I may have made sure he understood the value of a nice story.”

“It’s nice to know that’s something we all have in common,” Kurt says. “But he wasn’t too upset, then?”

“Nah. I did tell him that we’d all closed the circle, explained that to him, too.” Puck grins. “Guess it is the weirdest for him, though.”

“Yes, I guess it would be.” Kurt nods. “Closed the circle? That’s one way to put it. Very eloquent, Puck, I’m impressed.”

“Pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve been called eloquent,” Puck admits. “But thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And did Finn share his thoughts on our little closed circle?”

“Well, he insisted it was a triangle, but other than that.” Puck shrugs. “He did bring up a good point – how’re we going to pay for shit? Rent, groceries, whatever.”

Kurt giggles at the triangle, but then looks thoughtful. “Clearly employment is going to be a necessity. While we’re still in Lima, it’s less of an issue, but once we’re in New York, I imagine I’ll end up doing what all the other aspiring actors do, and bus tables.”

“Yeah, I put him off, said we’d figure it out once everybody knew what everybody else was doing. Speaking of that, did you realize Finn’s gotta be 21 to be a cop in New York?”

“And he has to have two years of college, as we’ve discussed previously,” Kurt says. “So obviously ‘enroll in college’ is a step on our list for Finn. OSU has a summer police academy program; maybe we’ll sign him up and see if we can’t bolster his academic confidence.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Puck chuckles. “He’s gonna flip about having to go to college. In a surprised way, I mean. Oh, and there’s that shooting range out near Ada. He should go out there once or twice a week before we leave.”

“Oh, maybe we should all practice shooting!” Kurt looks surprisingly excited about the idea. “We will have guns in the home, after all, and it would be safer if we all knew how to handle them correctly.”

Puck shrugs. “Yeah, that’s true. That’d be cool, I guess. Oh, I did find some kind of, I don’t know, pre-cop program that NYPD does. Full-time employment in the summer, part-time during school, you do two years of it, and bam. Officer. I saved the link but I didn’t print anything out. Cadet something.”

“That might be a wonderful transitional step for Finn. Good job, Puck!”

“Plus, you know.” Puck grins. “Back to the money thing. It couldn’t hurt, that’s for sure.”

“Yes, we’ll ease him into police work. Plus, wouldn’t that mean he gets to wear a uniform that much sooner?” Kurt asks, smiling. 

Puck smirks. “Oh, I see where this is going. But yeah, it would.”

“Predilection,” Kurt says, holding up one hand. “Not fetish.”

“Yeah, you keep insisting.” Puck shakes his head. “Except you’re the first one that used the word ‘fetish’.”

“Oh, my, look at the time!” Kurt pretends to look at his wrist, at a watch he isn’t wearing. “We should go meet Finn now and take a look at that apartment!”

Puck laughs but agrees, and he gets a to-go shake for Finn before leaving. When they get to the ‘Royal Manor’ Apartments, which don’t look particularly regal or manor–like, Finn is already there, standing by his truck and looking way more excited than the apartments probably call for. 

“Milkshake,” Puck says, handing the styrofoam cup over. “You go talk to the property manager yet?”

“No, I was waiting for you guys. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say, since, you know… three of us renting one bedroom?” Finn says. “Wasn’t sure they’d understand how it is.”

“Perhaps we should be brothers here to support our friend Puck and help him make a decision?” Kurt suggests. 

Puck shrugs. “Yeah, that works. Whatever it takes, right?”

The three of them meet the property manager, who talks rapidly about the two buildings the company owns, and it’s pretty clear there’s no one from the company living on the premises, which is good. The man, whose tie is way too short, takes them to one of the furnished studios first, and Puck didn’t realize that places like that actually existed outside television sets, much less in a place like Lima. Blue appliances, a rickety table, and a fold-down bed that looks too small for one of them, much less three of them. 

“Are there any of the one bedroom apartments available?” Puck asks. “That’s a really small bed.”

The man chuckles and walks down the hall, opening a different apartment. “Of course, the one bedroom apartments aren’t pre-furnished, but you nearly double your square footage!”

“How much furniture do you really need, dude?” Finn asks. “If you had a bed and a futon, you’d be fine.”

“Maybe some kind of table, for eating?” Puck shrugs. “Something to put a tv on.”

“You could eat on the bed. Or the futon, I guess,” Finn says. “Or the floor.”

“You could put a tablecloth over Finn,” Kurt suggests.

Puck laughs. “Only if he’s not standing up.” The three of them walk into the bedroom and leave the manager in the living room area. “Well? Should we take it?” Puck asks quietly.

“The pre-furnished one definitely won’t do,” Kurt answers. “We at least have some flexibility with the bed if we take this one.”

“The fridge isn’t blue,” Finn says. “We should take it.”

“Let’s do it, then,” Puck nods, and they walk back out into the main room. “We’ll— Uh, I’ll take it,” he says. 

“Great! Let’s go get the paperwork signed!”

Puck signs for a two month lease, June 20 to August 20, and since he clears about two hundred a week from cleaning pools, as long as everyone’s making some money, they should be able to cover everything. The manager gives him a stack of paperwork, about internet, cable, telephone service, the laundry room, and even moving companies. 

“You should go to this place right here,” the manager says. “Best price on boxes in town.”

“Oh, uh. Thanks.” Puck looks at Finn, confused, because he didn’t know you had to pay for empty boxes. Finn shrugs and shakes his head. 

“You can pick up the keys at the main office across town any time after 7:30 on Wednesday,” the manager concludes. “Thanks for doing business with the Royal Manor Apartments!”

“Uh, yeah. Thank you,” Puck says, shaking the dude’s hand, and then the manager lumbers off to his truck, leaving the three of them standing in the parking lot. “Well, looks like we got ourselves an apartment.” Puck frowns. “Shit, I guess I gotta go home and tell Ma. She and Alexis were gonna get back this afternoon.”

“Uh, hey Kurt?” Finn suddenly looks mildly panicked.

“Yes, Finn?” Kurt raises one eyebrow.

“Maybe you should tell our parents. You’re better at parents than I am,” Finn says. “Oh, I know, I’ll lead in with, ‘hey, Mom! Guess what? No Army!’ and then you can tell them we’re moving.”

Kurt laughs. “You could go pick up dinner, to get them in a good mood,” he suggests.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll get something really nice,” Finn says. He cuts his eyes over to Puck, and adds, “Like Breadstix takeout. That’s a great way to put somebody in a good mood.”

“Unfortunately for me, my Ma doesn’t like it,” Puck sighs. “Kurt, you have any tips?”

“Why don’t I follow you home and we’ll walk through some scenarios?” Kurt offers. 

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Puck agrees, nodding, because he’s pretty sure that Ma and Alexis aren’t back, yet, and he’s also pretty sure that walking through scenarios sounds like code words for fooling around, at the very least.

  


“That was an enjoyable scenario,” Puck says lazily. “Do we need to walk through any more?”

Kurt rolls over onto his stomach and props his head up on his hand. “I’m not sure that’s going to be helpful with your mother, but we can walk through a variation of it later, if you want. Give me twenty, twenty-five minutes?”

Puck grins. “It’d give me something else to focus on besides whatever Ma says.”

“If you need something else to focus on, I could give you a list of alternative topics.”

“A whole list?”

Kurt trails one finger down Puck’s chest, smiling. “I didn’t say it would be a long list. You could think about this. Or you could try to figure out why Finn won’t fuck you, so we can fix that.”

“I don’t think he understands we’re talking about one bed for all three of us,” Puck sighs. “I figured he just needed more time to come to terms with the whole cock thing, except, you know. Only _his_ cock involved in fucking me.”

“He doesn’t seem put-off by touching cocks, at least,” Kurt muses. “Or talking about touching them. I suppose this could be his line he’s not ready to cross, but maybe he just needs a little push. I can try to explain the bed to him.”

“I used the candleholders and that figurine on your mantel to explain closing the circle,” Puck says suddenly. “Maybe we should draw him some pictures or.” Puck stops. “We, uh. Could let him watch.”

“That would address both the bed issue and the sex issue all in one go,” Kurt says. “Call it a demonstration and let him participate as he feels comfortable.”

“Shit, Kurt. Has it been twenty minutes yet?”

Kurt giggles. “You like that, hmm? We can show him that it’s not scary. You’d have to make sure you sound extra enthusiastic.”

Puck lifts his head up and frowns. “Are you saying I don’t sound enthusiastic enough?”

“I just think we should put on a little show. You know how Finn is. If we dangle something shiny enough in front of him, he’s going to want to touch it,” Kurt says, biting his lip slightly as he grins at Puck. “Maybe he’s just waiting for some hands-on encouragement. Or maybe he needs someone to talk him through it.”

“I can be shiny!” Puck protests, thought it’s not really clear what he’s protesting. “But yeah. Maybe so. Seriously, Kurt, I’m dying here.”

“Poor baby.” Kurt pats Puck’s arm and offers him an over-the-top look of sympathy. “Maybe you should fuck _me_. Make sure you’re in practice, in case that’s actually what Finn wants.”

“Fuck, you think so?” Puck asks, his arm reaching out for the bottle of lube. “Bet he’d be all shy about it, though.” He pours some of the lube on his fingers and then looks at Kurt. “What position you want?”

“Easier to talk to you if I’m facing you. And I think maybe that’s it,” Kurt says. “Maybe he wants you to fuck him, but he doesn’t know how to ask.”

“Or he heard something once about bottoms and tops and thinks it’s all set in stone,” Puck points out, running his lubed fingers down the underside of Kurt’s cock, over his balls, and back to his entrance. He pushes one finger partially in and grins. “You like to take your time with this or get on with it?”

If this were Blaine, Kurt would say ‘get on with it’, because ‘taking my time’ turned into ‘leaving me hanging’ a few too many times with Blaine. “We’ll start by taking our time and I’ll let you know when I want you to get on with it, how’s that?”

Puck grins and the finger slips in a little bit further. “Cool. So I’ve never seen that brand of lube you have before.”

Kurt laughs. “It’s not from the local pharmacy. You’d have to buy it online. If you like it, I’ll order you some of your very own. You can write your name on it in Sharpie so we all know whose lube is whose.”

“Oh, man, we’re going to be _those_ neighbors,” Puck says suddenly, his finger slowly sliding in and almost out of Kurt repeatedly. “The ones that everyone hears yelling ‘who’s been using my lube?’!”

Kurt laughs again and changes the angle of his hips, raising them slightly off the bed. “Then we should start desensitizing Finn now, so he doesn’t pass out every time we shout. Yes, _that_ , do that again.” Kurt pushes himself against Puck’s finger. “And I don’t think he’s hung up on the top or bottom thing. I think that’s giving him too much credit or not enough. It’s probably like you said. He’s shy.”

“You want another one?” Puck asks, smirking. “You know he’s going to blush the whole time he’s watching us.”

“Yes, another one. And we’ll just make sure he sits where we can see him, then.”

Puck grins widely and his finger slides out entirely before he pushes two fingers back inside Kurt. “Probably won’t make eye contact with us for a couple of hours after,” Puck points out. “Maybe he’ll come close though, so we can touch him.”

“Or so he can touch us. He likes to touch.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Fuck, Kurt. Think about how big his hands and his fingers are,” Puck says, his own hand moving faster as he talks.

“Size queen,” Kurt giggles, then inhales sharply. “Think about him jerking you off while I fuck you, Puck. I bet he would. He’s so sweet about that.”

“Fuck!” Puck almost glares at Kurt. “Can we skip the taking our time part now?”

“Yes, lets,” Kurt agrees. “You should fuck me now before I just call him to come over and we jump him.”

“Oh, I’m going to fuck you,” Puck says, sitting up and grabbing a condom before rolling it on. “Can I fuck you hard?”

Kurt giggles and says, “I don’t know, Puck. _Can_ you?”

“I’m going to take that as an invitation,” Puck almost growls, lifting Kurt’s legs and positioning himself before thrusting forward. “Any complaints?”

Kurt cries out and lifts his hips. “No, no complaints. None at all.”

“Good. Shit, you feel good,” Puck says rapidly, his movements fast and forceful. “You think Finn wants to get fucked like this?”

“Finn would want it face-to-face like this,” Kurt says. He wraps one of his legs around Puck’s back, moving in time with Puck. “He likes kissing.”

“Yeah, he does,” Puck agrees. “You want some kisses, too?” Puck smirks and leans forward, pressing his open mouth against Kurt’s. Kurt returns the kiss, hard, raking his fingers down Puck’s back. He puts his other hand around his own cock, moving it in time to Puck’s thrusts. Puck pulls away from the kiss, almost gasping, and sweeps his eyes down Kurt’s body. “Fuck, that’s hot, Kurt,” he breathes. 

“Well, somebody has to take care of me,” Kurt says. “And that somebody is usually me.” He lets his eyes close, still moving his hand. “You can help me, if you want.”

Puck wraps his hand around Kurt’s. “Once we get Finn on board,” he says, “we’ll spend an afternoon just taking care of you, both of us. Sound good?” Puck moves his hips faster and speeds up the hand on Kurt’s cock, pulling Kurt’s hand with him. “You might be a little worn out by the end of it, though.”

“Then the next day will have to be your turn. Or Finn’s. Fuck, Puck, harder.” He brings his other leg up and around Puck’s back, digging his heels in. 

“Deal,” Puck promises, complying with Kurt’s demand and bending down again, this time kissing Kurt’s neck. He mumbles something into Kurt’s skin and then his speed increases again.

Puck’s mouth on Kurt’s neck is the last thing Kurt needs. “Fuck, I’m close, I’m so close,” he says, and it comes out almost as a whine. 

Puck shifts, his lips against Kurt’s ear. “Then come all over us, fuck, Kurt, you’re so fucking hot.”

Kurt comes then, all over Puck’s hand and all over himself, calling out Puck’s name. Puck continues thrusting in, hard and fast, for maybe half a minute before he comes, too, yelling before slumping on top of Kurt.

After a couple of minutes, Kurt lets his legs drop from around Puck’s back, and says, “Maybe we should get cleaned up before your mother and sister get back home.”

Puck lifts his head up and grins a little. “Yeah, Alexis would be all ‘eww, Ma!’ and then Ma would just sigh and invite you to have dinner or something. Which you don’t want to do, her cooking sucks.” Puck’s eyes widen almost comically as he stares at Kurt’s neck. “Um. Sorry?”

Kurt hand flies to his neck. “Noah Puckerman, tell me you didn’t.”

“I could _tell_ you I didn’t,” Puck says sheepishly. “But, uh. It wouldn’t be true?”

Kurt sighs. “Just keep it below the collar next time?”

“Wasn’t like I exactly planned it,” Puck mutters, sounding a little defensive. “But okay.”

“I’m under no obligation to explain it to anyone. It just doesn’t work with most of my summer wardrobe,” Kurt says. “Draws too much attention to my neck and I’m focusing on arms this season.”

“Maybe you should reconsider that. Focus on arms when it’s colder or something. ’Cause, well.” Puck shrugs. 

“You and Finn can dispense career recommendations to your hearts’ content, but fashion advice? Absolutely not. Finn dresses like an ice road trucker and you look like you got dressed in the dark. In 1996.”

“There is nothing wrong with ‘96. I was a badass preschooler.”

“And as your sense of fashion has developed not at all since that time,” Kurt says, raising an eyebrow, “let’s just leave that area to someone who knows what he’s doing.”

“You’re right about Finn, though,” Puck concedes. “He’d be bored as a trucker. Good thing we didn’t pick that one.”

“He’d be on the road too much, and we’d have to worry about those truckstop harpies. Unacceptable career choice,” Kurt says, with a shudder. “I’m sure they have a litany of diseases known only by their acronyms.”

Puck frowns. “Yeah, okay. Also a good point.”

Kurt sits up and starts pulling on his clothes. “I should go. You have to deal with your mother and I’d like to have a test run of that conversation with Finn, see how it goes.” He frowns slightly, and adds, “After we deal with our own parents, I suppose.”

“Just keep talking about how Finn’s not going to be in the Army, and Carole’ll be fine,” Puck says. 

“That was my plan,” Kurt agrees. “Finn or I will check back in with you later, so we can all make sure the three of us are still alive, limbs intact, and what have you.”

“Awesome.” Puck sits up, then leans over and kisses Kurt. “Or you could both check on me,” he adds, leering a little. 

“And that’s why I need to have that talk with Finn,” Kurt says. “Keep the forward momentum going.”

  


Finn is laying all the Breadstix takeout on the table, thinking how different this is from the Breadstick takeout dinner he had a few nights ago—which also wasn’t free, by the way, and he _does_ realize that story about the contest was just more dog bell trick—and wondering if Kurt’s going to actually make it home in time for dinner, or if he’s abandoned Finn to do this dinner with parents thing all by himself. Hopefully he’ll make it home in time, because if Finn starts trying to explain it, he’s probably going to end up saying something about handjobs, and that’s just no good.

Finn breathes a sigh of relief when he hears the front door opening, because Mom and Burt would come in through the garage, which means it’s either Kurt or a really bad burglar. 

“Hey, Kurt! Or really bad burglar!”

“What?” Kurt looks confused when he steps into the dining room. “Burglar? Did I beat them home?”

“The burglars? Yeah, you beat them, though I kinda hope they aren’t gonna show up at all,” Finn says. “That would freak me out.”

“No, Dad and Carole,” Kurt says impatiently, starting to fill the glasses Finn already set out.

“They called when their plane landed an hour ago, so they’ll be here, like, now or something.” Finn puts the plates on the table and looks at the spread. “I think this is a good dinner for breaking the news that we’re moving out, don’t you think?”

Kurt giggles. “I didn’t know there was a protocol for these things, but if anyone ever asks us for advice, we’ll have some for them.”

“You’ve got lots of great advice,” Finn agrees. “Also, a hickey. You have a hickey right there on your neck.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Kurt sighs. “It draws too much attention to my neck instead of my arms.”

“It’s kinda shaped like a bird. It’s nice.”

Before Kurt can say anything about his bird hickey, Finn can hear the garage doors opening, and then Mom and Burt coming in, their rolling suitcases thumping along the hallway. 

“Boys? Did you cook? I smell something good!” Mom says from the hall. “Finn, you didn’t use the George Foreman grill, did you?”

“No, Mom!” Finn calls back. “It’s takeout!”

“That was thoughtful of you boys,” Burt says as he and Mom walk into the room. “It’s good to see you!”

“Hi Dad, Carole,” Kurt says with a small smile. “Hope you’re hungry! Finn got plenty of different dishes.”

“Some of them are even good for you!” Finn says. “Well, good for Burt, anyway. How was Washington, D.C.?”

“Muggy,” Burt answers. “Glad to be home, even for just a few days. Sometimes I’m not sure I like how much this job’s keeping me away from Lima.”

“It’s good you’re keeping busy,” Kurt says. “They’re lucky to have you down there.”

“I feel like I’m missing out on so much, though,” Burt says. “Tell me what’s new, boys.”

“Well,” Kurt says as they all sit down. “Carole, Finn has some good news.”

“Oh, I do?” Finn asks. “Oh, yeah! That’s right, uh. So, Mom, I decided that I’m not enlisting.”

“Oh, honey!” Mom clutches at the front of her shirt. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” Finn says.

“What changed your mind?” Mom asks.

“Well, it was, uh…" Finn looks over at Kurt, who shakes his head and mouths ‘no dog bell trick’. “Kurt and Puck talked some sense into me.”

“What do you think you’re going to do instead, then?” Burt asks. 

“I’ll let you know after next Wednesday,” Finn says. “Don’t worry. Kurt and Puck are on it.”

“What he means is,” Kurt begins. “The three of us decided to lend each other a hand, since we all found ourselves at some loose ends without particular direction.”

“So you and Puckerman are going to tell Finn what to do?” Burt asks, looking skeptical. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on your own plans, Kurt?”

“Actually, no,” Kurt answers. “That’s Finn and Puck’s job.”

“Finn, honey, can you explain this a little better?” Mom asks, sitting down. “You boys are all picking out jobs for each other? I mean, that’s very sweet and all, but are you sure that’s wise?”

“Yes,” Finn says. “We all know what we’re doing. We’re, like, researching and stuff. We’ve picked out some great stuff for Puck already, but not shaving his head. That isn’t going on the list.”

“Well, that’s very… interesting, Finn. Kurt, maybe you could expand on that for me,” Mom says, smiling at Finn and then quickly turning towards Kurt. 

“It’s true,” Kurt admits. “Puck and I were researching alternatives for Finn, things that we were sure Finn hadn’t considered, and we realized that perhaps what we needed was an outside perspective on our talents and abilities. We’re going to come up with a larger goal for each of us, as well as several smaller goals and the steps we need to take.”

“So what does Blaine think about all this?” Burt asks. “I know he had some pretty exciting plans for the two of you this summer!”

“No, he doesn’t have those plans any more,” Finn says. “Those are not–happening plans.”

“What Finn _means_ is that I broke up with Blaine,” Kurt says calmly. “And they were only exciting if you happen to love disco. Which I don’t.”

“Nobody does, Kurt, that’s why it’s dead,” Finn explains. “Only Blaine and Mr. Schue like it.”

“Oh, Finn, I don’t know. I liked Donna Summer when I was young,” Carole says. “But it’s true that if you don’t care for disco, you might not be interested in a musical revue of the 1970s.”

“Wait, you broke up with Blaine because he likes disco?” Burt looks confused, and sure enough, the next thing he says is, “Kurt, I’m confused.”

“He was a bad boyfriend,” Finn says. “He wasn’t meeting Kurt’s emotional needs. Also, he had weird words for things, like, I don’t even know how he could say that stuff without laughing or being embarrassed or something.”

“Our relationship had not be optimal for some time,” Kurt says. “Several incidents occurred this past week that led me to make that decision. Also, Finn and I are moving out on Wednesday.”

Finn had thought they were going to find a better way to get that into the conversation, but apparently that’s it. “But not, like, _together_!” Finn assures them. “I mean, together, but you know, not _together_ –together!”

“Finn!” Kurt hisses, flicking Finn’s forearm. “It’s practice,” Kurt says to Burt and Mom. “For the autumn. Finn and Puck and I are going to make sure we can cohabitate.”

“Cohabitate where?” Mom asks. “And where are you moving to? Boys, this is all so sudden.”

“Don’t worry, Mom, we aren’t moving into an apartment with a blue refrigerator.”

“I agree with Carole,” Burt says. “This is very sudden.”

“New York,” Kurt says calmly. “And we got an apartment on Jameson. So we won’t be far.” He smiles brightly. “We’ll still come home to do the laundry!”

  


“Close the door,” Kurt says to Finn, then pauses. “Actually, lock it also, since Dad and Carole are home now. Granted, I think they’re going to be discussing us for hours yet.”

Finn closes and locks the door. “They asked the same questions a lot of times,” he says. “It was kinda funny.”

Kurt grins. “It really was, a bit. But they didn’t yell or anything, at least.” Kurt sits on his bed and pats the space beside him. Finn sits down, returning the smile.

“Mom’s really happy I’m not joining the Army. There might have been some yelling if it weren’t for that. I think maybe we broke Burt, though,” Finn says. “I hope he doesn’t think we’d give you a really bad job.”

“All three of us are relatively good at thinking outside the box, albeit in different ways. We’ll be three very interesting people, I suspect.” Kurt shrugs slightly. “I suppose we can reassure them again next Friday when we all know the full plans.”

“It’s gonna be so awesome. We’re all picking out great stuff,” Finn says, nodding to himself. 

“And our very own seven hundred square feet!” Kurt laughs. “Sunday afternoon, we can all three go find a bed, so it can be delivered on Wednesday.”

“And a futon, so I’ve got some place to sleep, too,” Finn agrees. “I don’t want to sleep on the floor.”

Kurt sighs. “Finn. No one’s sleeping on the floor. _Or_ a futon.”

“No?” 

“No.” Kurt slides his fingers between Finn’s. “One big bed.”

Finn looks dubious, he eyebrows lowering and his mouth tipping into a half–smile that seems to indicate he doesn’t quite believe Kurt. “Well, that would make stuff kind of, you know, not convenient. If people wanted privacy.”

Kurt purses his lips, trying to figure the best plan of attack. “It makes other things quite convenient.” He looks sideways at Finn, trying to gauge his response.

“Yeah, but if anybody wants to— ohhhhhh. Oh. Okay. I get it.” Finn’s face turns red and he stares down at his hands, running his thumb across the back of Kurt’s hand a few times. “Uh. Is that something, you know. People want?”

“Yes,” Kurt replies simply. “It is. If you do as well.” Kurt shifts sideways and brings his other hand to Finn’s chin, tilting Finn’s face towards him. “Since you have some reluctance about a few things, we thought you might want to watch first?” Before Finn has a chance to respond, Kurt leans up, bringing their lips together and sliding the hand from Finn’s chin around to the back of Finn’s head. 

Finn makes a high-pitched noise into Kurt’s mouth, one of his hands coming to rest on Kurt’s thigh, squeezing gently. His mouth opens against Kurt’s, and Kurt lets his tongue slip into Finn’s mouth, his fingers tightening in Finn’s hair. Almost without thinking about it, Kurt moves his legs, his thighs falling further apart. Finn’s hand slides higher and higher up Kurt’s leg, his fingers brushing along the inside of Kurt’s thigh, until Finn’s hand reaches the juncture of Kurt’s legs. Finn presses his palm against Kurt, cupping his cock through his pants. 

Kurt gasps a little into Finn’s mouth before pulling back enough to whisper. “What do you want to do right now, Finn?”

“Can, uh… can I maybe jerk you off again?” Finn asks, ducking his head slightly, cheeks pink. 

“You know, if you want something else… that’s fine. It’s more than fine, actually,” Kurt says hurriedly, because it is definitely more than just ‘fine’. “Just tell me.”

“I don’t know how to do anything else,” Finn answers, sounding slightly apologetic. “I mean, girl stuff, kinda, but…"

“We can figure out the how, if you tell me the what,” Kurt says, a little teasingly. “Will you get undressed for me?”

“All the way?” 

Kurt tilts his head and knows he looks puzzled. “What do you mean?” He’s pretty sure Finn doesn’t mean leaving his underwear on, since they’ve progressed past that particular point previously. 

“Well, Rachel liked me to keep my shirt on,” Finn explains. “So I didn’t sweat on her.”

“Oh, for…" Kurt shakes his head. “Yes, all the way, Finn.”

Finn nods and pulls off his shirt, then unbuttons his jeans and slides them and his underwear off. Once he’s naked he sits on the bed awkwardly, his hands on his knees. 

Kurt runs his hand down Finn’s back and rests his chin on Finn’s shoulder. “Thank you. What do _you_ want right now?”

“Uh. Maybe to not be the only one who’s sitting here without any clothes on?” Finn says. “I feel kinda extra–naked with it just being me.”

“I suppose I might be a little bit overdressed,” Kurt concedes, removing his clothes before sitting down next to Finn again. “Better?” Finn nods, placing his hand on Kurt’s leg again. “So, what else do you want? Remember what I said. We can figure out the how.”

“Do you think it’s fair? I mean, if we do stuff without Puck?” Finn asks. “New stuff. ’Cause he’s, uh. Talked about some things, and I didn’t do them then, but I know that him and you…"

Kurt moistens his lips. “I think,” he says carefully, “that Puck would want to hear about it later. Otherwise, yes. What do you want to do?”

“Well, but what if it’s something Puck asked me to do, but maybe I wasn’t ready then for, like, _reasons_? And maybe those reasons aren’t as, I dunno. The stuff that made me say not right then isn’t stuff that bothers me now?” Finn frowns. “Do you think he’d be upset?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Kurt answers. “But we could call him and be sure. If you wanted.”

“I don’t want to hurt his feelings,” Finn says. “It’s not that I don’t want to do what he asked, even! Just… you know, if I didn’t do it right, he might be all, ‘Dude, you’re not doing it right!’ and then I’d feel stupid, and I don’t think you’d say something like that.”

“Hmm.” Kurt traces a circle absently on Finn’s arm. “I think as long as you didn’t do it _only_ with me, he’d be fine.”

Finn nods. “But it’s okay if I did it with you _first_ , though?”

“ _I_ think so. Yes.” Kurt grins. “Of course, I do stand to benefit in this scenario.”

“Yeah, maybe not so much,” Finn mumbles quietly. “Maybe I’ll just jerk you off again. I like doing that, and you like it, right? I want to do things that you like and will make you feel good.”

“Oh,” Kurt says quietly. “I’d like other things too, though. I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit.”

“Everybody says my learning curve’s not really steep,” Finn says. “I don’t want you to be disappointed. Or like, get left hanging or anything. That would suck and I don’t want to do that to you.”

“I think you’ve actually come quite far in a short amount of time,” Kurt can’t help but point out, smiling wryly. “I trust you, like I said. I trust you with this, too.”

“Okay,” Finn says, smiling back at Kurt. “Okay, then, I, uh. I’d really like to have sex with you. If you want to. If you can show me how to make it good for you.”

Kurt’s smile grows a bit wider. “I’d like that. And I’ll do my best to tell you.”

“I tried to look it up on Google, but the links were kinda, uh. Complicated,” Finn confesses. 

“The Internet isn’t always the best source, believe it or not,” Kurt says, giggling a bit. “But we can start with just kissing and touching each other. Sound good? And then we’ll go from there.”

Finn slides his hand up Kurt’s thigh again, running his fingertips around Kurt’s cock. “Yeah, I think that sounds really good.” He leans forward and presses his lips to Kurt’s, gradually increasing the pressure as he wraps his hand around Kurt’s cock. Kurt parts his lips under Finn’s, pressing his hips forward into Finn’s grip. Finn puts his other arm across Kurt’s back and carefully pulls him back against the bed. 

Kurt pulls away slightly and grins. “Feels really good, too. Whenever you’re – you know, it _is_ inconvenient.”

“Huh? I’m doing something inconvenient?” Finn looks and sounds worried, his hand stilling on Kurt’s cock. 

“No, no. Just. The lube, it’s inconveniently hidden.” Kurt sighs. “It’s in that box on the bookcase.”

“Oh,” Finn says. “Isn’t that kind of far away?”

“Until this week it hadn’t been a pressing issue,” Kurt admits. “But yes. It’s very far away.”

“Can I go get it? I could just bring the whole box over and you could put it on your table thing over here.”

“Yes, that’s an excellent idea.” Kurt grins. “You should do that _now_.”

Finn stands up and walks to the bookshelf, picking up the box and bringing it back to the table by the bed. He climbs back onto the bed beside Kurt and runs both his hands down Kurt’s body, from the sides of his face to his legs. “You’re so pretty,” Finn says, his eyes wide and a note of awe in his voice.

“Why thank you.” Kurt grins again. “You’re quite handsome yourself. And you should feel free to touch wherever you like.”

Finn smiles so broadly that his eyes crinkle, and he runs his hands down Kurt’s body again, from shoulders to hips. He puts one leg across Kurt and sits up, so he’s straddling Kurt, still smiling. 

“Hey Kurt.”

“Hello.” Kurt giggles. “Do you want to know something funny?”

“Sure,” Finn says. He rests one hand on Kurt’s chest, fingers spread. Kurt puts his hand on top of Finn’s and grins. 

“Puck’s a size queen. I’m pretty sure that’s why he wants you to fuck him so badly.” Kurt giggles. “It’s cute. Don’t tell him I said he was cute, though. I bet he’d hate to be ‘cute’.”

Finn’s face turns red again, and the blush spreads down his neck and his upper chest. “Yeah. Yeah, he’d say he’s ‘badass’, not ‘cute’.” The hand resting on Kurt’s chest moves, sliding down to Kurt’s stomach. 

“And yet, I’m pretty sure there’s no way to be a badass size queen.” Kurt giggles again. “I just don’t think there is.”

“I, uh. Don’t really know what that means.”

“A size queen is a guy who. Hmm. How best to put it. Who prefers his partners to be well-endowed.” Kurt grins and slides his hand over Finn’s cock. “Luckily we both appear to measure up.”

“Oh,” Finn says, his face turning even brighter red. “You think so?” He continues moving his hand down Kurt’s stomach, wrapping his fingers around Kurt’s cock again. 

“I do.” Kurt moves his hand slowly up and down. “You need to put some of the lube on your fingers,” he starts, “and then you’re going to slowly push one finger inside me. Please?”

Finn nods his head slowly and leans over to open the decorative box. When he has the bottle of lube in hand, he sits beside Kurt and opens the bottle, pouring some lube onto his fingers. “Is that enough?”

“That’s good, yes,” Kurt nods. “Too much is as bad as not enough.”

“Okay. So just, push one finger in,” Finn says, more to himself than to Kurt. Kurt moves around slightly, tilting his hips up, and nods. Finn kneels between Kurt’s legs, a look of intense concentration on his face, and pushes the tip of his index finger against Kurt’s entrance, slowly increasing the pressure until it slips inside. 

Kurt nods. “You can go a bit faster. If you want.”

The look of concentration increases as Finn continues pushing his finger inside of Kurt. Once it’s fully inside, he glances up at Kurt’s face. “Does that feel okay?”

“Yes. More than okay, in fact.” Kurt rocks his hips a little. “Move it in and out a bit, and then add another one.”

Finn nods and starts to move his finger, watching Kurt’s face as he slides it out and pushes it back in. “You feel so hot and tight,” Finn says in a soft voice. “Are you sure you want another finger?”

“ _Please_ ,” Kurt says firmly. “It feels good. And.” Kurt runs his tongue over his bottom lip. “Think about how hot and tight I’m going to be around you.”

“Oh fuck,” Finn whispers. “Okay. Fuck.” He pulls his finger out and then pushes two back in, moving even more slowly than before. “Oh, _fuck_ , Kurt. How am I gonna fit?”

“You will,” Kurt assures him. “God, that’s going to feel good. Like that. There, Finn.”

“There, what? Is that good?”

“There, more there, very good,” Kurt says in a rush, rocking his hips towards Finn. “I’m not going to break, Finn, please. Faster.”

“Okay,” Finn says, and he starts to move his fingers faster, pushing them inside a little harder. His eyes dart between Kurt’s face and where his fingers are buried inside Kurt, and after a moment he breathes, “This is so cool.”

Kurt tries for a few moments to contain himself, then bursts out giggling, his hips still moving. “Yes,” he agrees. “It is very cool.” He grins at Finn. “God, Finn. I want you inside me now.”

“Yeah? Do I just… like this?”

“Condoms are in the box, use lube, and yes, slow and steady.” Kurt nods. Finn reaches for the box again and plucks out a condom package, which he tears open. He unrolls the condom down his cock and then pours more lube into his hand.

“Is this too much?” he asks Kurt. 

“That’s good. It’s hard to get too much. But it _is_ possible,” Kurt clarifies, wincing a little. “That’s perfect, though.”

Finn nods and spreads the lube on his cock, then looks at Kurt. “Let me know if I’m doing it wrong, okay?” Finn says. “Or right, I guess.”

Kurt nods. “I will.”

Finn takes a deep breath and moves so he’s almost on top of Kurt, propped up on one arm. He uses his other hand to position himself, and then pushes forward slowly, the head of his cock sliding inside of Kurt. “Oh, holy shit,” Finn breathes. Kurt changes the angle of his hips slightly, pushing towards Finn, and bites on his bottom lip. As Finn moves deeper inside Kurt, his eyes close, and a low whine comes out of his mouth. “Oh, god, that’s tight, you’re so tight, oh god, Kurt.”

Kurt rocks his hips up and wraps his legs around Finn. “You feel wonderful,” Kurt whispers. “God, you _are_ big, Finn, fuck. More. I need more.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Finn says. His eyes are still squeezed closed and he might even be gritting his teeth. 

“I’ll tell you if you are. Okay? But right now, just. Please, Finn,” Kurt begs, reaching up with one hand and resting it on Finn’s shoulder. Finn’s forehead wrinkles, but he nods, and then pushes the rest of the way inside, pulling back and pushing inside again.

“Like that?” Finn asks.

“Yes,” Kurt nods. “Exactly.”

Finn continues to move, placing one hand on Kurt’s chest as he thrusts into Kurt. “What else? What else can I do to make it good?”

“Put your hand on me,” Kurt replies. “Same speed as you’re moving, or faster. Kiss me.”

Finn’s hand travels down Kurt’s chest to his cock, fingers wrapping around it. Finn strokes Kurt just slightly out of sync with his thrusts, and he leans down to kiss Kurt, his tongue inside Kurt’s mouth. Kurt moves into Finn’s thrusts and lets his mouth fall farther open under Finn’s lips, then tightens around Finn. 

Finn lets out a low cry into Kurt’s mouth, his hand moving faster on Kurt’s cock. “Oh, god,” he moans against Kurt’s lips. “Kurt, I’m not gonna last long.”

“I know,” Kurt says, nodding frantically. “I know.”

“Kurt,” Finn almost whines. “I’m so close. I want to make you feel good.”

“You _are_ ,” Kurt says. “God. Fuck, Finn, yes, come.”

“ _Kurt_.” Finn thrusts into Kurt harder. “Oh, god, I’m.” He starts to shudder, his head dropping forward with a loud moan, his hand still moving on Kurt’s cock. 

“Fuck.” Kurt pushes into Finn’s hand, biting his lip and grabbing Finn’s hair. “Oh, god,” Kurt cries, coming all over Finn’s hand before falling silent, his legs dropping to the bed. After a few silent moments, Kurt runs his hand through Finn’s hair. “Okay?”

Finn nods slowly. “That was… Kurt, you’re amazing,” he says in a quiet voice.

“I try,” Kurt says, feeling a little giddy. “You were quite good yourself, sir.”

Finn’s head drops onto Kurt’s shoulder and he mumbles, “Nah.”

“You were,” Kurt insists. “Promise.”

Finn presses a soft kiss to the side of Kurt’s neck. “Okay. If you promise, then I guess I’ve gotta believe you.”

“You do. That’s actually the new rule for the apartment. You have to believe me.”

“Okay. Kurt’s always right.” Finn shifts his weight to the side, so he doesn’t crush Kurt as he settles against the bed. “You should call Puck and tell him that, I don’t know. Everything.”

“And make sure his ma didn’t—what was that colorful phrase he used?—shit bricks. Yes.”

“Can I stay while you talk to him?” Finn asks. 

Kurt shrugs. “I don’t see why not. You don’t have to get dressed yet that way, either.”

  


“So was Carole jumping up and down that Finn wasn’t going to the Army?” Puck asks, closing his bedroom door and lying back on his bed.

“She was relieved, yes, though it took the better part of an hour to explain our little career plan,” Kurt says, sighing. “I’m not sure they’re really on board, but after an hour, we got tired of trying and left them to discuss it amongst themselves.”

“Ma was psyched. Apparently her retreat talked about initiative and direction and shit, and this shows I have them or something.” Puck laughs. “I told her she could have my bedroom for a craft room. Don’t moms always want a craft room?”

“Now, there’s a thought. Finn, we should ask Carole if she’d like a craft room. I was thinking we could turn one of them into a workout room for Dad,” Kurt says. “Maybe it would nice for each of them to have a room.”

“Sounds good.” Puck frowns. “Did you know about this paying money for empty boxes thing? I was just going to go around to some dumpsters or something.”

There’s a background mumble on Kurt’s end, then Kurt says, “Finn suggests we try the fast food places, because they, and I quote, ‘get a billion boxes a day’. Thoughts?”

“Sure.” Puck shrugs to himself. “Or Walmart. I bet they get a ton.”

“Yes, we’ll try there first,” Kurt agrees. “So, we thought we might have a little mattress–shopping expedition on Sunday. For a bed. For all _three_ of us,” he added, emphasizing the ‘three’. Puck can hear Finn laughing in the background.

“Sunday? Yeah, that sounds good.” Puck grins. “So you got Finn on board?”

“Oh, that’s one way to put it,” Kurt says, then giggles. “You’re alone?”

“Yeah, lying on my bed. Why? You got a story to tell now?”

“I might. Finn and I had a lovely little talk after we escaped the clutches of our confused parents. I found out why.”

“Yeah?” Puck rolls over onto his back. “What’d he say?”

“I’m still partially on board with our original theory, but he also seemed to be worried that you’d tell him he was bad in bed,” Kurt explains. Finn says something and Kurt responds, “No, it’s fine, Finn. It’s not true, anyway,” then he speaks into the phone again. “It’s not true, though.”

“So’d you, uh, coach him through it?” Puck asks, grinning. 

“Yes, I did, and he’s a fast learner. You aren’t too disappointed?”

Puck laughs. “He was worried about that?”

“I told him we could call you first and check, but then things started moving too quickly and that fell by the wayside,” Kurt says. “But yes, he wanted to be sure you wouldn’t think it was unfair.”

“Tell him no worries,” Puck answers. “Probably better you didn’t call, I would have told you to leave the phone on speaker on your nightstand.”

“As of next Wednesday, you won’t have to.”

“That is very true.” Puck smirks a little. “So tell me about just how fast a learner Finn is.”

Kurt giggles and says, “Well, let’s just say that if you thought he felt big in your _mouth_ …"

“Fucking tease,” Puck mutters, unfastening his jeans and wrapping his hand around himself. “Just so you know, I’m going to jerk off now.”

“Holy shit!” Finn says, _not_ in the background.

“Hi, Finn,” Puck says, reaching off the bed and getting a bit of lube on his hand before putting it back on his cock. “I’m not naked, though.”

“That’s too bad. You look good naked,” Finn says. “It’s too bad you weren’t here earlier.”

“Yeah, so you two should tell me about it,” Puck retorts. 

Puck can practically hear Finn blushing over the phone, and that’s confirmed when Kurt says, “Oh, you’re making him blush!”

“That’s kinda easy sometimes,” Puck laughs. “Was he shy, like we said?”

“A little bit, at first. His blush goes all the way down his chest,” Kurt says. “Rachel used to make him leave his shirt on so he wouldn’t sweat on her. What do _you_ think about that, Puck?”

“Seriously?” Puck shakes his head. “That’s half the fun, getting all over each other.”

“But I sweat a lot,” Finn says. “I’m kind of gross.”

“You’re a dude. All dudes sweat. Right, Kurt?”

“Right. He’s also not at all gross. He smells good,” Kurt says. “I didn’t mind getting his sweat on me.”

“You two shower off yet?” Puck asks, moving his hand a little faster. “Or are you lying there naked?”

“Kurt’s still sticky,” Finn says. “We didn’t shower yet.”

“It’s true,” Kurt sighs. “I’m a terrible mess.”

“Nice,” Puck says appreciatively, closing his eyes and doing his best to picture the two of them. “Sounds like I’m missing a good party.”

  


“It can’t hurt to ask, Finn,” Kurt says as he pushes the door open to World on a String. “I realize it’s not necessarily the _best_ resource, but it is here.”

“Does he really _need_ to know how to read sheet music, though?” Finn asks. “There’s lots of great rockers who don’t know how to read that, and he knows how to read the guitar stuff, at least.”

“Puck’s not unintelligent, Finn; there’s no reason he can’t pick it up quickly, and while yes, there are famous musicians who don’t read music, I believe it will make the road a bit easier.”

“But this place smells like pot and creepy old man sweat,” Finn whines. “Can’t we read about it online or something? We could hire him a music teacher from an online ad!”

“I checked,” Kurt admits. “A good deal of Lima is still not internet–savvy, it appears.” Kurt points across the shop to a cluttered bulletin board. “Why don’t you look at the advertisements there, and I’ll talk to the man behind the counter?”

Finn gives the man behind the counter a suspicious look before nodding. “Okay, but watch out. He looks like that guy that hangs out outside the laundromat with the pink plastic umbrella,” he says, before wandering over the the bulletin board. 

“What guy with…" Kurt shakes his head and heads towards the counter. “I was wondering if you had any suggestions on finding an appropriate music teacher? I have a friend who is self-taught on both guitar and piano, but he doesn’t read music.”

“Sure, sure,” the man says, nodding his head several times. Finn may have been correct about the pot. “We’ve got a few teachers we refer people to for lessons. There’s more on the board, but these are the ones we get the most recommendations about.” He rifles through a drawer and pulls out a folder, then retrieves two business cards and a sheet of neon yellow paper, handing all three items to Kurt. “One of these guys’ll probably do the trick.”

Kurt skims the paper and looks back up with a tight smile. “Yes, thank you,” he nods. He starts to walk towards Finn, who is peering at the bulletin board as though it were covered in something fascinating, rather than advertisements for used guitars and music lessons, when his phone begins to ring. 

“Hello?” Kurt answers quickly. 

“Kurt!” Rachel’s voice chirps in his ear. “I was hoping I would catch you.”

“Hello, Rachel,” Kurt responds, looking up at Finn, who is now tearing off tabs from every single flier with a tab of contact information at the bottom. “I trust you are well?”

“Yes, New York is wonderful!” she trills. “We’re staying another week. We’ve already looked at the dorm and an assortment of apartments, though I think for the price, the dorm will be much more reasonable. Ms. Thibodeaux even joined us for breakfast yesterday morning! My dads insisted, of course.”

Kurt can’t help but think that it sounds a bit creepy, and his comment about stalking wasn’t very far from the mark. “Yes, some apartments in New York can be quite pricey.” Like any of them in the area near NYADA, something Kurt had known for several months. Or like most of them in Manhattan, something he was rapidly confirming with each Google search. 

“Everything in New York is so expensive! A cup of coffee is five dollars and my dads spent ten dollars on my sandwich at lunch today, can you believe it?” She huffs into the phone. “It’s going to be quite an adjustment, but that’s not why I called.”

“Oh? And what was your reason for calling?”

“Can’t I just call and catch up with one of my best friends without there being an ulterior motive involved?”

“You could,” Kurt concedes, “but it seems unlikely at this juncture.”

“ _Kurt!_ Of course I’m calling to catch up with you. I was worried about you,” Rachel says, managing to somehow sound righteously indignant. “Blaine called me yesterday.”

“Ahh.” Kurt understands what prompted the timing of her call. “I suppose he informed you that I broke up with him?”

“Oh, Kurt, you know I’m not going to choose sides!”

“Choose sides?” Kurt says blankly. “No one said anything about choosing sides, Rachel.”

“Well, anyway,” Rachel continues, ignoring him entirely. “I’m not calling because of the breakup. Of course, not all high school romances can be expected to survive past graduation. Look at my own situation.”

“Mmmhmm,” Kurt says noncommittally, imagining the tale that Rachel’s spun in her head. No doubt it features her and Blaine as the tragically spurned protagonists of the tale, hearts broken by the brother–villains. “Indeed.”

“Of course I hope that you and Blaine will one day find your way back to each other, just like I hope that Finn and I can someday, but for now… Kurt, Blaine seemed to be under the impression that you were making some life decisions that could be perilous to your future career.”

“Rejection of auditions for community theatre’s _Bye Bye Birdie_ can hardly be called a perilous move, Rachel,” Kurt replies, deciding that he’ll skip one day of poking fun at the ‘70s revue. “I am doing a great deal of research and putting thought and effort into several endeavours.” All of which, Kurt tells himself, is true. 

“Blaine intimated that you might be, oh how did he put it?” Rachel pauses dramatically. She almost certainly remembers exactly what Blaine said; the pause is for effect. “Oh yes, that you might be allowing two unqualified individuals direct the course of your theatrical career.”

“Isn’t two better than one?” Kurt says, smiling to himself. “That is. Blaine is not exactly qualified himself and seemed to want to do that.”

“Kurt, surely you don’t really believe that Finn—who of course I love dearly and miss every single day—and _Puck_ of all people are more qualified to help you pursue your theatrical endeavors!”

“You know, you might be surprised at what people can contribute when you stop assuming they have nothing to contribute,” Kurt says mildly. Of course, he has no idea what Puck and Finn have planned for him, but he’s hardly going to attempt to explain that to Rachel. “Everyone has their own theories. Just because Blaine came up with something doesn’t make it automatically more correct, Rachel.”

“Kurt! I’ve always believed in Finn’s potential. That’s not fair at all,” Rachel says, sounding somehow both pouty and outraged. ‘Pout-raged’, perhaps, Kurt thinks, and he can’t hold back the giggles that escape. “ _Kurt_ , it isn’t funny!”

“Sorry,” Kurt apologizes, though he doesn’t feel very sorry at all. “I, uh, read something funny.”

“Apology accepted,” Rachel says, still a bit huffy. “But, speaking of Finn…"

“What about him?” Kurt glances sideways at Finn and starts walking towards the door, inclining his head and indicating for Finn to follow him. 

“He’s doing well?” she asks.

“He is,” Kurt answers. “Did you want me to pass along a message?”

“He’s not… no, that’s silly. It’s only been a week.”

“Not what, Rachel?” Kurt asks, though he has a suspicion he knows exactly what she was going to say. 

“He isn’t seeing anyone else is he? Blaine said Finn might not be enlisting now, but he had been so adamant, and— well, it’s just not like Finn to change his mind like that, not unless he had a good reason,” Rachel says, her voice rising in pitch. “But it wouldn’t be a girl, not this quickly. It’s you and Puck, right?”

Kurt has to slap his hand over his mouth so that he doesn’t giggle in Rachel’s ear yet again. “I can definitely tell you that I haven’t seen him with another girl, nor has he mentioned one,” Kurt says calmly after a few moments. Again, all true. “And yes, Puck and I had several concerns that we mentioned.”

“Well, I must say I’m relieved. Whatever else happens, I hated the idea of him enlisting, so if you and Puck have somehow managed to talk him out of that, I’m extremely grateful. You’re wonderful friends.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and wants to respond that they didn’t do it for _her_ , but settles for responding with “Yes, we were relieved as well.”

“My dads have managed to hail a taxicab, so I need to go now,” Rachel says abruptly. “Take care of yourself, Kurt. I’m sorry that your recent disappointment means you won’t be joining me here in the fall. I’d hoped we would be doing this together.”

“Indeed,” Kurt says softly. While he has plans now, Rachel doesn’t know about them, and somehow that makes her words cut more. “Bye, Rachel.”

“Goodbye, Kurt.”

“Wait, was that Rachel on the phone?” Finn says. “You didn’t tell her about us going to New York did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Kurt assures Finn. “However, she’s spoken to Blaine recently, and I don’t have a clue as to what he might have told her.”

“He should have told her he was a sucky boyfriend,” Finn replies, glaring at nothing in particular. “She say anything else?”

“She wanted to know if you had a girlfriend,” Kurt says brightly. “I told her I hadn’t seen or heard of any girls.”

Finn starts to laugh, then catches himself and forces his face to look serious. “Nope. No girlfriends. Not even one.”

“I didn’t say anything that was untrue, throughout the entire conversation,” Kurt says proudly. “Now, that doesn’t mean I told her anything close to the complete truth, but she can’t argue that I lied.”

“Sometimes it’s okay to lie to people for their own good, though,” Finn says. 

“If she asks what our plans are for the fall, specifically, then I’ll lie,” Kurt shrugs. “But that’s for our own good, not hers.”

“Yeah,” Finn sighs. “Oh, so did you find some music lesson guys?”

“Two business cards and a flier,” Kurt reports. “These are, apparently, their most recommended instructors. I suggest we make a short list of questions and call each potential instructor for an impromptu sort of interview.”

“I think one of the questions needs to be how much does it cost?” Finn suggests. “That might be the first one we should ask.”

“Yes, a sense of the pay scale for music instructors will be helpful,” Kurt agrees. “And for how long that pays for.”

“And whether they can teach him the music reading stuff before we move to New York, or if he’ll need a guy there for that, too!”

“As I said, Puck’s relatively quick with some things, his abysmal grades in European Geography notwithstanding. I don’t doubt he can learn the necessary basics before we move.” Kurt frowns. “I still haven’t figured it out— _why_ did Puck take European Geography, exactly?”

“I think the U.S. Geography teacher used to be on his pool cleaning route,” Finn says. “He wasn’t allowed to take any of her classes.”

“Hmm.” Kurt shakes his head. “Well, regardless, I doubt he’ll be using the content of either class, thanks to Google and Wikipedia.” Kurt can’t imagine a time when any of them will use much of their very basic geography courses, if he’s honest; perhaps a more in-depth and less encyclopedic course would have had actual value. “Did you have any thoughts on potential jobs Puck could take on while he’s working on his music?”

“Well, there won’t be pools in New York City, but he’s good at that kind of stuff,” Finn says. “He needs a job where he can talk to people and, like, pour things.”

“Hmm.” Kurt pulls out his phone, quickly doing a search. “The other night, when Puck used his one move on you—well, at that point, there was just one—how much alcohol did _he_ actually have?”

“He used a move on me? I thought it was just the dog bell trick thing. There was a move, too?”

“Wine coolers?” Kurt says questioningly. “Wine coolers and then getting you into bed? That move.”

“Oh. The Quinn Fabray Treatment.”

Kurt bursts into giggles. “Yes. That move. That’s a good name for it, too. Luckily he has a grand total of two moves now.” Kurt shakes his head and looks down at his phone. “Regardless. How much alcohol did he actually have, if you can guesstimate?”

Finn frowns and his brow wrinkles. “You know, now that you mention it, I _thought_ he was drinking a lot, too, but I think there were only eight empty bottles and six of those were mine.”

“Good lord, Finn.” Kurt giggles again. “Okay, then. So, what do you think about bartending, for Puck? It’s very social and he’d get to pour and mix things.”

“What? I’m big!” Finn protests. “Puck said I’m a sasquatch or a yeti or something. And I wasn’t that drunk, really.”

“Okay, okay,” Kurt reassures him, still grinning. “But seriously. Bartending?”

“That’d be cool,” Finn says, nodding. “He’d be good at that, I bet. He’d probably get lots of tips, too, because he’s hot. Ooh, and he can learn to do that flipping thing from that movie!”

“Let’s see.” Kurt turns his phone sideways. “I don’t think it takes long to learn. If we find… yes.” Kurt looks up and beams. “There’s a bartending school in Toledo. Four consecutive Saturdays, and the next course starts at the beginning of July.”

“Awesome! He’ll be our hot bartender boyf— Puck. Our hot bartender _Puck_!” Finn’s face reddens and he looks away.

Kurt tilts his head, studying Finn for a moment, then brushes his hand against Finn’s, holding it there for Finn to take, if he chooses. Finn’s hand immediately closes around Kurt’s and he gives it a light squeeze, his eyes flickering back towards Kurt and a little smile appearing and almost immediately disappearing. 

“I don’t see— well, perhaps that’s another discussion for all three of us to have,” Kurt says quietly. “But I don’t think there’s a problem with using that term.”

Finn smiles at Kurt almost shyly. “Maybe.”

“We’ll talk to Puck later,” Kurt promises. “For now, we should get him signed up, don’t you think?”

“That sounds great,” Finn says. “He’ll be awesome at it.”

“I agree.” Kurt squeezes Finn’s hand. “Want to get a snack?”

“I always want to get a snack!”

  


“I’m going to call Puck again,” Finn announces. “He’s probably on his next pool by now, so probably we should check in with him, right? See how it’s going?”

“Finn, you’ve called him at least three times, and the last time was only,” Kurt looks at his phone and shakes his head before continuing, “fourteen minutes ago.”

Kurt doesn’t know about the two times Finn called when Kurt was in the bathroom, so Finn doesn’t say anything about it. “It was, like, _sixteen_ minutes ago. Your watch is slow,” he says. 

“Is there a particular reason you’re more concerned about Puck today?” Kurt asks. “I’m sure that he’s just as capable of swimming to shore today as he was earlier in the week.”

“Uh. No.” Finn’s not sure why he bothers, because Kurt is usually a mind-reader.

“Finn.” Kurt tilts his head and raises his eyebrow, then runs his fingers down Finn’s forearm. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s just… what about the cougars, Kurt?” Finn asks. “It’s not like there’s anything official and maybe Puck doesn’t want anything official and they’re… they’re.. they’re _cougars_ , Kurt!”

“Ahh.” Kurt nods slowly. “Okay. Call Puck and tell him we’re all three having dinner together tonight. What would you like?”

“Buffet is good,” Finn says, because he could probably stand to drown his sorrows in an endless vat of creamed corn and all-he-can-eat apple pie. “Do I ask him about the cougars? Maybe you should.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and nudges Finn in the side. “Call him, Finn.”

Finn pulls out his phone and calls Puck. It rings three times and Finn starts to think maybe Puck _is_ being cougared right that very moment when Puck finally answers. 

“Hey,” Puck says, sounding slightly out of breath, and then there’s the sound of him drinking. 

“Did I interrupt something?” Finn asks, trying to sound all nonchalant and probably failing, but it’s not like he actually got into that acting school.

“Nasty–ass filter. New client, I think they last cleaned their pool in 2008,” Puck says. “What’s up?”

“We, uh.” Kurt pokes Finn’s side and shakes his head slightly, looking almost exasperated. “Oh, yeah, we want to eat at the buffet tonight. Is that cool with you? I need, like, all the creamed corn.”

“All-you-can-eat sounds like a good plan, yeah,” Puck agrees. “Meet you there?”

“Yeah. That’s cool. Uh, so, Puck?”

“Yeah?” There’s the creak of a chair in the background, like Puck’s sat down or something.

“Just, uh, watch out for cougars, okay?” Finn says, feeling sort of ridiculous for how it comes out sounding.

Kurt apparently thinks it sounds funny, too, because he starts giggling. Puck just snorts. “It’s Saturday, dude. All the cougar husbands are home, _if_ that was something to worry about.”

“Okay. I was just, uh. You know.” Finn runs his hand through his hair and looks over at Kurt for some kind of backup or advice or something. “Don’t forget to drink enough water.”

This time both Kurt and Puck laugh. “Yeah, okay,” Puck says. “I won’t. See you at dinner.”

Finn puts the phone back in his pocket. “He said _if_ the cougars were something to worry about,” Finn says. “That means they’re not, right? No cougars?”

“That sounds correct, yes.” Kurt nods. “Feel better?”

“Do you think he means it, though?”

“Does he really have any incentive to lie?” Kurt asks. “It’s not like anything has been asked, like you said.”

Finn shrugs. “I guess he doesn’t have any reason to. I’m just being. Uh. How I be, I guess.”

“Mmm. We’ll talk to him at dinner, okay?” Kurt says, his hand lying on top of Finn’s.

“Can we ask him, do you think?” Finn asks. “I mean, do you _want_ to ask him? I don’t know what any of this is and, I dunno. Maybe it’s better if there’s not, like… rules?”

“The quickest way for this to explode in our faces is if we’re _not_ all on the same page, Finn. If each think it’s something different…" Kurt shrugs. 

“Well,” Finn starts, then stops and breathes out. 

“Well?”

“Nevermind,” Finn says quickly. “It’s okay.”

Kurt tilts his head and squeezes his fingers around Finn. “Tell me.”

Finn frowns and shakes his head a little. “Well, I guess… what do you think it is?”

“I think,” Kurt says carefully, “that it’s something good. That we’re good for each other, all three of us, and that there’s no need to have anyone else for any of us.”

“Yeah? You don’t think, uh. Anyone else?”

Kurt grins. “I don’t know about you, but I think two is quite enough to keep up with.” He presses his lips to Finn’s quickly. “You two wore me out yesterday.”

Finn smiles back at Kurt and says, “We keep you busy.”

“You do.” Kurt shifts a little closer. “You know, Dad and Carole aren’t here. If you wanted to keep me busy some more.”

“I don’t know, Kurt. This is _unscheduled_ ,” Finn says, putting his arm around Kurt. “Do you think that’ll throw off the whole rest of the day?”

Kurt giggles. “That was more or less what I was hoping for.”

  


Puck gives the woman refilling the steaks a broad grin, but she looks at his plate and sniffs. “It’s _all-you-can-eat_ ,” he mutters under his breath, snagging a roll before he sits down next to Finn at the table the three of them claimed. “Kurt still getting food?”

“They had something with rice that he was interested in. I don’t know what it was,” Finn says. “I have five pounds of creamed corn, though, so I’m awesome.”

Puck laughs. “You should have gotten one of the big dessert bowls and just filled it up.”

“That’s a good idea. I might do that later,” Finn says, eating another spoonful of his creamed corn. “I wish Mom would make this stuff at home. It’s so good.”

“You could make it?” Puck suggests. “Dude, we are so in trouble if every third night you’re feeding us grilled cheese.”

“Do I really have to cook dinner every third night? I mean, are you sure that’s safe?”

“You could continually trade for some other chore,” Kurt says, sitting down with his plate. “If Puck or I are willing.”

“Are you willing?” Finn asks. 

“Maybe,” Puck answers just as Kurt says “perhaps.” 

“The real question,” Kurt muses, “is how long we can endure the grilled cheese.”

“I could make stuff besides grilled cheese,” Finn insists. “I can make, uh. Soup. I can make soup.”

“I think it’s good we didn’t want him to be a chef,” Puck says jokingly to Kurt. “Soup and sandwiches.”

“Limited menu, yes.” Kurt grins. 

“Mom always says it’s better to do a few things well than a lot of things half–ass,” Finn says. “Or something that sounds a lot like that without the ‘ass’ part, I think.”

“I’d like to hear Carole say ‘ass’, actually,” Puck confesses. “Maybe record it.”

“We could totally trick her into saying it,” Finn says. “Or I could just says, ‘hey Mom, say ass for me’ and see if she’ll do it.”

“Doubtful.” Kurt takes a drink and then smirks. “Instead of half of an ass, we have three asses in this whole set-up.”

Finn turns a little red and takes a sip of his drink, then mumbles, “That _is_ a lot of asses.”

“Haven’t heard any complaints yet,” Puck says. 

“To be fair, not all asses are fully involved,” Kurt says, still smirking. 

Finn turns even redder and almost snorts his pop through his nose. After he’s finished coughing and making ridiculous faces, he says, “That’s. True.”

“Of course it’s true,” Kurt says sweetly. “Speaking of involved, however. I think now is an excellent time for a conversation.”

“A conversation about what?” Puck asks. 

“Terminology, in a way.”

Puck raises his eyebrows. “Hmm. Talk to me.”

“The thing from earlier, right?” Finn asks. 

“Yes, Finn. Well, two different things from two different times earlier, really.”

Finn makes his stupid–face. “Oh. Which two things? The ‘what do we each think it is’ thing and the what? The, uh,” he lowers his voice, “cougar thing?”

Kurt shakes his head slightly. “More or less.”

“I knew it,” Puck says with a smirk. “I knew you weren’t that concerned about the possibility of heat stroke.”

“I’m concerned about that, too!” Finn insists. “I saw this thing on the news that says most people don’t drink enough water!”

Puck shakes his head, and almost feels bad about teasing him. “Do you want to pack my lunch, dude?”

“Be nice,” Kurt says, but there’s no force behind it. “Yes, what we each think it is, and well. What terms we use to refer to each other.”

“I’d pack your lunch,” Finn grumbles, poking his creamed corn with his spoon. “And I’d put enough water in it, too.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Puck shrugs. “What terms? Like… relationship terms?”

“Terms and conditions,” Kurt says. “Like iTunes for relationships.”

Puck laughs. “Right. Okay. Hadn’t really put much thought into it. Tell me what you were thinking.”

“I didn’t call you our boyfriend!” Finn blurts, which Puck immediately knows means that Finn either did, or came close to doing so. 

Puck chews for a minute to stall, because it’s true, he hadn’t put much thought into it. And in Lima, well, they’re going to get enough odd looks as it is. When they get to New York, though, it’d be good to have the terms and shit already in place. Puck’s pretty sure none of them are ready for ‘partner’ because that sounds pretty heavy, and they’re only eighteen— well, nineteen, in Kurt’s case, but only barely. Actually, now that Puck thinks about it, it makes Kurt and Blaine’s past relationship even weirder, since Blaine only turned seventeen in February or March or something. 

“‘Boyfriend’ works,” Puck says after he swallows. “Unless there’s a reason it doesn’t?”

“I don’t think that terminology is problematic,” Kurt says. “I’m not sure Finn could handle some of the alternative terms. No offense meant, Finn.”

“Like ‘lover’?” Puck asks, grinning. 

Finn almost chokes on his creamed corn. “Dude, we can _not_ use that word! That’s, like, the older chick you date if you’re in an ‘80s movie!”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, we’ll stick with boyfriend. Okay. So that’s terms.”

Kurt nods. “Okay, now conditions. I don’t want to be exposed to STDs and personally, I think two is sufficient for me to balance, though that’s my limit and not something I expect either of you to apply, necessarily.”

“I can’t guarantee there’s not ever gonna be a one night stand,” Puck says honestly. “If that’s a deal breaker, I need to know. I can wear a condom and say it’ll only be one night for any one chick, but well.” He shrugs. “I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep.”

Finn frowns and makes the stupid–face and picks at his food. Kurt pats Finn on the arm without turning to look at him first, then says, “Thank you for being honest, Puck. It’s better that we’re all up front about what we can and can’t commit to before we leave the state.”

“We’re gonna have to talk. I mean.” Puck shrugs. “Not like girly talk, but if someone gets offended or feels left out or whatever, and they don’t say anything, it’s not going to be pretty. Not living in such a small space.”

“I agree. Regular discussion needs to be a big part of this,” Kurt says. “It’s just like making a grocery list or a household budget. Some things just need to be part of the routine if we’re going to keep this running smoothly.”

“Like figuring out who’s cooking,” Puck jokes. 

“If we need anything ironed,” Kurt says, “Finn’s the one to go to.”

“Like, oh, _uniforms_?” Puck says, smirking at Kurt. 

“It’s _not a fetish_!”

“I don’t know. I think it kinda is,” Puck says. “That other word’s just a fancy way of saying ‘fetish’, I bet.”

“No more talking,” Kurt says to Puck, glaring. “Finn, sweetie, I think that corn is already as creamed as it’s going to get, no matter how hard you poke it with your spoon.”

Finn looks up morosely from his plate. “Ironing is kind of relaxing,” he says.

“Yeah, I guess we will have to divvy everything up.” Puck shrugs. “We should all do the things we like to do best, and then draw straws or something for the shitty jobs.”

“Someone has to wash the dishes and clean the bathroom,” Kurt agrees. “Fairly sure we don’t get the self-cleaning model for $410 a month.”

“We should rotate the actually shitty jobs.” Puck snorts. “Dude,” he says to Finn. “Did the corn offend you?”

“It owes me money,” Finn says. 

Puck’s not stupid; he knows Finn got all sad–faced at the damn corn as soon as Puck opened his mouth about one night stands and chicks. But he hasn’t said it’s a deal-breaker, either, so Puck’s not sure how to interpret it. 

“We should go home and talk about this more, away from the offensive money–owing creamed corn,” Kurt suggests. Finn nods and sets down his spoon, pushing his plate away. “Puck, you’re joining us.”

Puck mock–salutes. “Your parents out?”

“Saturday night is date night,” Kurt says. “Dad will keep Carole out too late and she’ll drink a little too much red wine, and then Finn and I will put in our earbuds as we go to sleep.”

“Nobody needs to hear that,” Finn says, wide-eyed.

“Our date night’s practically lame by comparison,” Puck says, laughing as he stands up. “We should go by Family Video and rent a bad ‘90s action film to round it off.”

Kurt grimaces. “I actually had slightly better plans.”

“We can upgrade from ‘lame’ then.”

“Oh, I think we can raise the bar higher than that,” Kurt says. “Come on. We still have hours before Dad and Carole get home.”

  


Finn knows it’s stupid to be jealous when the whole basis of your relationship with somebody is that there’s three of you, but he still can’t help but feel like, once again, he’s not enough for anybody. Even when he’s half of two people, he’s not enough. He wasn’t enough for Quinn, who cheated. He wasn’t enough for Rachel, who really did kind of love the stage more than him. He’s not enough for Puck, and that’s with the whole combined awesomeness of Kurt. It just sort of sucks. It’s not a dealbreaker or anything, but it still sucks.

“Were you listening at dinner, Finn?” Kurt asks pointedly. 

“Yeah, I was listening,” Finn says, leaning against the passenger side door, leaning his head on the window glass. 

“So you heard the part about how we have to actually _talk_?” Kurt continues. “Not just bury it down and sulk?”

“I didn’t exactly say ‘sulk’,” Puck says. 

“No, you said to say if it was a dealbreaker and it’s not, so I didn’t say it was,” Finn says. “So, what else do you want me to say?”

“We might have to get a little ‘girly’, Puck,” Kurt says over his shoulder. “You can still have thoughts or feelings without it being a dealbreaker.”

“Look, do you want me to act like I was surprised?” Finn asks. “I’m not. Both of my girlfriends cheated on me with Puck, so why wouldn’t Puck… well, anyway. It’s not a deal breaker, so we can just drop it.”

“And if I didn’t say anything, and we said no one else, I’m going to have a countdown in my head until I fuck it up,” Puck says. “’Cause that’s pretty much what I’ve always done. I didn’t say it’d be often or anything, just. For once, I want to screw up for a few hours and not have it ruin everything.”

“Dude, I know who you are, okay?” Finn says, trying not to sound mad or hurt or anything. “And I like you how you are. It just sucks, sometimes, is all. Not ever being enough for anybody, you know?”

“Which is interesting,” Kurt says, “since my view was that it was handy Puck and I were able to close the circle, as he puts it.”

“I don’t mean you, Kurt,” Finn sighs. “I don’t mind Puck wanting you, too. That’s cool. It’s good that it’s that way. It’d be lonely without you and anyway, you’re kinda the one that makes all of this work. We’d probably, like, starve to death or never think about washing our clothes or something if we didn’t have you. Plus, you know, you’re _you_.”

“You probably would,” Kurt agrees, “but what I meant was that both of us were interested in _you_.”

“Yeah, well. There’s interested and then there’s _enough_ , I guess,” Finn says quietly. “I’ll get used to it. Like I said, not a dealbreaker, just… you know.”

“Dude, when have I ever thought anything was enough?” Puck says wryly. “More like the two of you putting up with me.”

“Maybe I like putting up with you,” Finn mutters. “Did you ever think of that?”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Well, if you put hope in a bottle, you could sell it and get rich,” Finn says. “That’s what Mom says, anyway.”

“Carole has some odd sayings,” Kurt remarks.

“I guess I just can’t promise I’m not gonna be jealous,” Finn says, sighing. “If I promised that, it wouldn’t be true. I’m not jealous of you and Kurt together, but if there’s other people, I’m probably gonna be. I hope _that_ isn’t a dealbreaker.”

“Better to admit it than pretend it’s fine. I think.” Puck frowns. “Kurt?”

“No, I agree. This will just take plenty of communication.”

“Okay, well. Good, I guess,” Finn says. “I still want to do this, even if some parts suck, or might suck. I think the good stuff will outweigh the sucky stuff.”

“Nothing is perfect.” Kurt shrugs and turns into the driveway. “It is better to acknowledge that at the outset than pretend otherwise.”

“We sound really fucking mature,” Puck says with a snort.

“We should stop and get some ice cream,” Finn suggests. “Just to balance it out.”

“There’s a gallon or two in the freezer. We could just grab spoons and not use bowls?” Kurt says, grinning.

“If I can eat the ice cream with no pants, I agree to this compromise,” Finn says. “And see? Now we’re mature again.”

“So mature,” Puck laughs. “Unbelievably so.”

  


They do eat their ice cream, not just pantsless, but naked, and Puck puts ice cream all over his chest and demands that Kurt and Finn eat it off of him. Kurt does take a few dainty bites, but Finn licks Puck all over like a puppy, with the end result that three of them—Puck especially—are a sticky mess.

“Children! I swear, I can’t take you anywhere,” Kurt declares. 

“We didn’t go anywhere. We stayed at home with no pants,” Finn says. 

“That’s why we can’t go anywhere,” Puck says, shrugging. “No pants. No shirts or shoes, either.” He smirks. “So, Finn, the other day Kurt and I were talking.”

“About something specific,” Kurt cuts in, before Finn can start listing the possible topics of conversation he imagines them having. “Involving us and you.”

“We thought you might like to watch,” Puck continues. 

“From the VIP seats, of course,” Kurt adds. “Does that sound appealing?”

“That means on the bed.”

Finn blushes deep red, but he nods his head vigorously. “Yeah. That’s. Yeah.”

“Good.” Puck looks at the decorative box, now beside the bed, and grins, flipping it open. “So here is an important question.” He pauses and wraps one arm around Kurt, hauling Kurt on top of him. “Do new boyfriends get to make fun of the old one?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Kurt says adamantly. “Old girlfriends, too, where relevant.” 

“Excellent.” Puck stops talking after that, pulling Kurt’s head down and kissing him hard. While he’s still kissing Kurt, the lube flips open and then a slick finger presses against Kurt. 

“Are we putting on a good show?” Kurt asks Puck softly. “We have to give Finn the hard sell.”

“Yeah, something’s hard,” Puck says, smirking and rolling them over before sitting up. “Roll over,” he adds, nudging Kurt’s hip. Kurt rolls his eyes first, his body second, turning over onto his stomach and looking up at Finn, who’s watching Kurt and Puck with wide eyes. 

“Hi, Finn,” Kurt says, with a little giggle. The laughter seems to put Finn slightly more at ease, because he gives Kurt a smile.

“Hey Kurt.”

Puck laughs. “Hi, Finn.” He pushes his finger inside Kurt as he speaks, leaning forward and running his other hand down Kurt’s back. 

Kurt moans and Finn’s breath catches before he says, “Hey Puck.”

Kurt presses back against Puck’s hand. “Formal greetings are out of the way,” he says. “More, Puck.”

“Demanding.” Puck obliges immediately, though, a second finger taking its place beside the first, and Puck moves them slowly in and out. “Look at his face, Finn.”

Finn’s eyes had been darting back and forth between Puck and Kurt, but at Puck’s words, his gaze returns to Kurt’s face. Finn’s lips part slightly and his breathing gets faster as he watches. “You’re so pretty, Kurt,” he says, his voice breathy.

“Thank you, Finn,” Kurt replies, then makes a noise that is certainly not a whine and says, “Puck, it’s not a taking our time night. Come on!”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Puck mock–gripes, pulling his fingers out and reaching back into the box for a condom. He opens the lube again and then grasps Kurt’s hips. “Hands and knees.”

Kurt lets Puck pull him up onto his hands and knees, and he makes a point of looking at Finn and grinning. “Having fun, Finn?”

Finn nods his head. “Yes. Yeah. This is… yes.” He exhales loudly and runs his tongue across his lower lip without seeming to realize he’s doing it. 

One of Puck’s hands stays on Kurt’s hip, grip growing tighter, as he steadily pushes inside Kurt. “Getting on with it enough for you?” Puck grunts. 

“Fuck, yes, perfect,” Kurt says. He starts to close his eyes, then changes his mind and makes eye contact with Finn again instead. “Feels good.”

“Yeah, you’re so fucking tight.” Puck pauses when he’s completely inside, then starts thrusting into Kurt, hard. “Fuck, Kurt.” He stops speaking for a moment and Finn’s eyes move up to where Puck’s face is before coming back to Kurt’s. “You wish you were doing this, Finn?” Puck asks, voice low. “Fucking Kurt? Fucking me? Or maybe you want one of us fucking you?”

Finn makes a loud whimper and shivers, not quite making eye contact with Kurt anymore, but not looking up at Puck, either. “Yes,” he says in a small voice. 

“All of those?” Puck says. His hand moves from Kurt’s hip to Kurt’s cock, wrapping around it. 

“Yes. All of those,” Finn answers, even more quietly. 

“Finn, you don’t have to just watch if you’d like to participate,” Kurt says. “What do you want?”

“Do you want to touch one of us?” Puck asks. “Or do you want Kurt to blow you?”

Finn breathes out and says, “That, oh fuck I want that” all in a rush, brushing his fingers lightly through Kurt’s hair. Finn shifts slightly on the bed, rising up onto his knees and leaning forward until Kurt can hear the sound of Finn’s mouth on Puck’s. 

Kurt moves forward just enough to take the tip of Finn’s cock in his mouth, running his tongue over it. Finn groans, the sound muffled against Puck’s mouth, and one of his hands slides into Kurt’s hair. Kurt slides his lips down and wraps his tongue around Finn, moving slowly. Finn’s fingers tighten in Kurt’s hair, and Puck’s speed increases, the hand on Kurt’s cock also moving more rapidly. 

Finn starts rocking his hips forward slowly, not too hard, and he must break the kiss with Puck at least briefly, because Kurt hears Finn whisper, “Oh, shit, _Kurt_!” before falling silent again. Kurt speeds up, moving his tongue across the top of Finn’s cock, and Puck thrusts harder behind him. He can taste Finn, knows he’s close, and he tightens around Puck while running his tongue over Finn again and again.

Finn starts to come before he cries out, and his fingers tug at Kurt’s hair, pulling him closer. Kurt keeps moving his tongue on Finn’s cock until Finn is still, and it only takes a few thrusts after that before Kurt feels himself start to come, shuddering and barely holding himself up. Puck continues thrusting into him, the hand that was on Kurt’s cock now wrapped around Kurt’s waist, helping to hold him up, until Puck comes with a yell of his own.

Kurt slowly pulls his mouth off Finn and lowers himself to the mattress. “That? Was awesome,” Puck mutters, lying down as well. 

“Holy shit,” Finn says in agreement. 

Kurt turns his head to look at Finn and grins. “Next time you and I do that, I’ll make sure my hands are free, too.”

“Starting to see why we need a nice big bed?” Puck asks.

“What’s the biggest size they make and how much is it gonna cost?” Finn asks. “’Cause that’s the one we need.”

  


“Tell me I’m not the only one with a sudden strange need to jump on these mattresses,” Puck says as they walk into Mattress Land.

“Dude, I was so worried that was just me!” Finn says. “Think we can sneak in a jump or two before anybody notices?”

“ _Children!_ ” Kurt says sharply. “I really can’t take the two of you anywhere, can I? Pants or no pants.”

“You know you wanted to,” Puck says with a smirk as a salesperson walks over to them. 

“Welcome to Mattress Land! What kind of mattress can I help you find today?” He looks between the three of them, like he’s not sure who to address.

“The biggest one you have,” Finn announces, then looks over at Kurt, then at Puck, and adds, “Because, uh. I am tall. Very tall.”

“Good god,” Kurt whispers, putting his face in his hand and shaking his head. 

“Most people do find that a king size meets their needs,” the salesperson says, “though there are two companies that produce a ‘grand king’ novelty size.”

“No, Finn,” Kurt says. “Finding sheets would be impossible and it wouldn’t fit in the apartment.” 

“But it’s _bigger_ than the one you said was the biggest,” Finn argues. “It would be awesome!”

“I think a king’s fine,” Puck says. “It’s bigger than a queen, anyway, and we made that work fine.” He realizes as he saying it that the salesperson can definitely hear him, but Puck shrugs and looks straight at the salesperson, almost daring him to say something. 

“We have several king size models to choose from,” is all that the salesperson says, gesturing to one side of the store. He opens and closes his mouth several times as he walks in that direction, his gaze going from Puck to Finn to Kurt and then back again three or four times before he stops walking, looks at the mattresses, and finally closes his mouth. 

“Now we can jump on them,” Finn says. “Right?”

“Only if we want to make Kurt go crazy.”

“Making Kurt crazy can be good, if it’s the right kind of crazy,” Finn muses, but then he looks over at Kurt, and adds, “but I think this is maybe the wrong kind of crazy.”

“The pillow-top mattresses are here, and our more traditional mattresses are here.” The salesperson looks at the three of them again. “Ah, will you be needing to purchase a mattress cover and delivery as well?” He looks hopeful, which makes Puck think there’s probably commissions involved. 

Finn apparently decides he’s taking the lead on the mattress shopping, or at least on harassing the salesperson, because he puts on a ridiculously serious face and says, “Let me confer with my associates.”

“Why?” Kurt hisses at him. 

“Because I don’t know if we need those things?” Finn whispers back, making the stupid–face. 

“Associates was _not_ a term we agreed on,” Puck says, shaking his head. “And I think we do. Both of them. After we pick one of these.”

“Well, there’s really only one way to do that,” Finn says, and he turns and flops onto the nearest mattress. “This one is too firm.”

“You next,” Puck says to Kurt. “I want to be Baby Bear.”

“I should have done this on my own,” Kurt mutters to himself. “Should have had you give me cash and come and done this on my own.” He lowers himself carefully onto another mattress. “And actually, this one is too firm, too, Baby Bear.”

“You would have missed us,” Puck counters, flopping onto one of the pillow-top mattresses. “This is nice. I feel like it’s going to swallow me.”

“Yes, but that’s not supposed to be the mattress’ job,” Kurt says. “Can you actually sleep on it?”

“It’s surrounding me with fluffy clouds. Happy clouds. Like the painter dude.” Puck rolls onto his stomach. “Dude, we’re going to kill this poor salesperson. Look at his face.”

“I’ve gotta try that one, too!” Finn says, throwing himself onto the mattress next to Puck. “Oh my god. I died. I died and went to heaven and it’s _this mattress_. Kurt, you have to come lie down with us.”

“If the salesman dies, do you think there’s a chance we could be charged?” Kurt asks, lying down next to Finn on the mattress. “Because I really don’t want to go to— oh, you’re right! This mattress is amazing!”

“I told you, Kurt. It’s the best mattress ever. We have to have this mattress, right, Puck?”

“I’m Baby Bear,” Puck agrees. “And we all fit on it.” He looks at the salesperson. “Yeah, so, we need the thing it sits on, and that cover thing, if it’s waterproof, and delivery on Wednesday.”

The salesperson hasn’t really recovered at all, and may even look worse. “Of course,” he stammers. “If you’ll just come with me, I’ll get the order and delivery manifest written up.”

  


Puck isn’t exactly happy about the early alarm on Wednesday morning. Not after two days straight of packing, planning, and fucking all slotted around when he was working. His room is in boxes, though, ready to load in the back of his truck, and he and Finn had managed to put together a pretty badass plan for Kurt, plus the one he and Kurt had for Finn.

He kills the alarm and puts the rest of his shit in the open box, then seals it, carrying it straight out to the truck before loading the remainder of the boxes. He grabs some breakfast in the kitchen and leans against the counter until his ma stumbles in. 

“I’m leaving,” he announces, and she nods, still sleepy.

“Keep your key, at least for now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Puck agrees, then drives to the office on the east side of Lima to meet Finn and Kurt and get their keys. The office manager, who is named Iris and immediately thereafter dubbed ‘Iris the Irate’ by Kurt, gives them the stinkeye for showing up before eight to pick up keys. 

“Is there any possibility of getting a third key?” Kurt asks, and Iris huffs and rambles off something about the ‘number of unrelated people legally allowed to occupy a single bedroom apartment’ until Puck tunes her out. The gist of it is that no, there’s not a third key, which means the three of them will have to get a copy made before the day is over. 

They do get two keys, and another glare from Iris the Irate, before leaving the office and caravaning over to their apartment building. Puck pulls into the parking lot and leans against the hood as the other two pull in. “So what first?”

“We should start by unloading the lighter boxes, because they’re on top, but we should just bring those inside and set them in their correct location,” Kurt says. “Then we’ll carry in the heavier furniture and decide where we want that.”

“‘We’ carrying the furniture mostly means ‘me’, right?” Finn asks, making air quotes with his fingers. 

“You and Puck,” Kurt agrees. “Someone has to decide what goes where, and I’m obviously better suited to that task.”

“People don’t say that people _decorated_ in the dark in ‘96, you know,” Puck grumbles. 

“I’ve seen your bedroom,” Kurt says. “I’ve seen _both_ your bedrooms. You two carry, I’ll arrange.”

“We’re pack mules,” Puck mutters to Finn. “Pack mules.”

There’s not really any point in arguing, though, so Finn and Puck carry in a couch, a desk that Puck remembers being in Finn’s bedroom before Burt and Carole got married, the television, a table, and a bizarre–looking hanging egg chair. 

“Is this supposed to seat one person, or two?” Puck can’t help but ask. 

“This couldn’t even sit just me,” Finn says. “So I’m guessing one. Maybe one half.”

“You could prop your legs in it?” Puck suggests, grinning. “It’s adaptable. Chair or ottoman.”

Kurt sighs loudly and dramatically, but doesn’t explain about the chair. He does point to a corner of the living room where he wants it placed, however, before he continues moving boxes around. 

They get all of the boxes carried up before the mattress shows up, which means that Kurt starts directing them to move boxes around, too. Kurt arranges the dishes that Carole gave them—apparently originally purchased for Finn and Rachel, but Carole forgot to return them and handed them over to Finn on Tuesday with a “may as well get some use out of them”—in the cupboards, grumbling something to himself about how they aren’t even a pattern and how will they find platters that match. 

“We need platters? What about those silver ones, if we, you know, have a platter emergency?” Puck asks, because he’s not sure they’re going to be throwing dinner parties or whatever.

“Some people find it helpful to have something on which to place cooked food, in between the oven and the plate,” Kurt says, sounding huffy. “Serving bowls and platters are helpful in that capacity.”

“Can’t we just put it on another regular plate?” Finn asks. “I mean, there’s only three of us and we have eight of them.”

“Oh my god,” Kurt mutters. “It’s like living with cave people. I’m moving in with cave people.”

“Or we could serve it from the stove,” Puck says, nodding at Finn. “Besides, you seemed to appreciate our more cave–like qualities yesterday.”

“Just stop talking now so I can focus on all the reasons why this was a great idea,” Kurt says. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. “Finn, did you buy a shower curtain like we talked about?”

Finn nods. “You didn’t tell me what color, so I just got clear.”

“Yes, clear is fine.”

“Clear is awesome,” Puck smirks. “Did you get the kind that doesn’t get all foggy?”

“I got the kind that was clear, so, whatever, like, features that it comes with,” Finn says, shrugging. “I mostly focused on the clear.”

Puck grins and goes over to one of his boxes, rummaging around until he finds a thick black Sharpie. “Where’s the shower curtain?” he asks Finn, holding up the marker triumphantly.

“Puck, dearest? Why exactly do you have that marker?” Kurt asks. 

“So I can draw the outline of a TV on the shower curtain,” Puck says, shaking his head. “I could make it a computer monitor, though, if you’d like that better.”

“Like porn!” Finn pipes up in his ‘no, wait, I know this one’ voice, big dumb grin on his face.

“Which I don’t actually watch,” Kurt says. “But will apparently now be starring in during my daily shower.”

“That way when you have your Biography special, they can have a segment called ‘Porn Star’.” Puck grins and starts to open the shower curtain, spreading it out on the floor. “So, tv or monitor?”

“TV,” Finn says. “That way it’s like we have a giant flatscreen. I mean, one that only shows one channel and nobody else is allowed to watch it but us, but still.”

“I have no opinion on this,” Kurt answers, shaking his head. “Truly.”

“TV it is, then.” Puck decides to make it look like an old set, with the dials on the side. “What time is the mattress supposed to show up again?”

“Noon. We have time to run a few errands before then,” Kurt says. “We need food. I’m also realizing we have a shortage of cooking utensils, but we can pick some up at the grocery store, too. Also, we should get some plastic drinking glasses and a few more ice cube trays.”

“Can we get the shaped kind?” Finn asks. “Like fruits or boats or trees or whatever?”

“You know, over at the place on Allentown, they sell them shaped like—”

“ _Yes_ , Finn!” Kurt interrupts suddenly, looking horrified. “Fruits or trees would be just fine.”

  


They get back from the grocery store and are getting the groceries put away where Kurt tells them to when the mattress delivery guys show up. Since they paid the $15 or however much it was for set-up, the delivery guys put the frame together and put the box springs and mattress on, and then the three of them have to remember who it was the signed everything so the right one of them can sign the delivery receipt.

Kurt makes the bed with the sheets and pillows and blankets he bought on Monday or Tuesday, and after he does that, he has Puck drag the bedside table that Kurt brought from home over to the side of the bed. Once he’s happy with where the table is, Kurt gets his decorative box and makes a big show of setting it right in the middle of the bedside table.

“There. Now we’re moved in,” he announces.

Even Finn has to agree that they’ve got all the important stuff covered at that point. Putting the clothes away and all that stuff can wait. 

“No.” Puck shakes his head sadly. “The mattress hasn’t been properly been broken in.” 

Kurt turns towards Puck with a huge smile on his face. “I will never, ever forgive Blaine for that brain trust comment. He’s an idiot and you’re a genius.”

Puck looks really proud of himself, grinning back at Kurt. “No argument there. You had the box _across the room_.”

“The two of you finally gave me a reason to relocate it,” Kurt says. “And I’m sure you’ll give me a reason to restock it before the week is over.”

“I think that was a challenge for us,” Puck says to Finn. “Should we take him up on it?”

“Yeah, I think that’s what people are supposed to do when they get a new place, anyway,” Finn says. “Like you said, break in the mattress. And, anyway…" Finn lets himself sort of trail off, because even if he wants to _do_ it, he’s still kind of embarrassed about _saying_ it. 

Puck and Kurt exchange a look before they sidle up to Finn, Kurt grinning and Puck smirking. “Yeah?” Puck asks, sliding his hand under Finn’s T-shirt. “You want something?” he continues, sounding like he knows exactly what Finn wants.

Finn’s face feels warm and he doesn’t look right at Puck, but he says, “You know what I want.”

“Yeah,” Puck agrees. “Pretty sure I do.”

“We should open our bottle of wine,” Kurt says, not adding the ‘that Puck conned some lady at the grocery store into buying for us’ part. “After all, that’s how they christen a new ship, right? Only we should skip the smashing part.”

“This might be the best thing _ever_ ,” Puck says almost reverently. “Middle of the day in the middle of the week, and we’re drinking and fucking.”

“Yeah, that is pretty awesome,” Finn says. “And we’re doing it in _our_ place. Nobody else can come in. It’s just ours.” The _just theirs_ part is important, and it makes him feel more relaxed and less nervous about a lot of stuff. 

“I’ll be right back,” Kurt says, walking out of the bedroom. Puck pulls off his T-shirt as Kurt leaves the room, then drops his jeans on the floor and steps out of them. Finn watches Puck undress and starts pulling his own shirt over his head, hearing Kurt come back into the room. “Well, this is nice,” Kurt murmurs. “I should leave the room more often.”

“You didn’t even have to go to the shower curtain,” Puck says. “But only leave for a little while. Like for wine.”

“Mmm, no need to worry about that.” Kurt sets the bottle of wine on the floor, along with his glass, and he hands the other two glasses to Puck. Finn kicks off his jeans and watches Kurt slowly undo the buttons on his shirt. “Puck, pour for us?”

“Sure.” Puck picks up the bottle and pours a glass for each of them, handing Finn his and setting the bottle back on the floor, close to the door.

Finn sips his wine a little nervously, noticing that it’s a lot nicer than the bottle of stuff that had the tree on it. Maybe it’s just that he likes white wine better than red wine. Kurt sits down on the new mattress by the pillows and pats the spot next to him.

“Finn, come sit,” Kurt says. “You know I don’t bite unless I’m about to come,” he adds, smiling at Puck. “Puck? Sit by Finn?”

Puck moves them both towards the bed, one hand on Finn’s shoulder, and he presses down gently as he sits down himself. He picks up Finn’s hand and puts it on his cock, wrapping Finn’s fingers around him. Finn tosses back the rest of his glass of wine and hands the glass to Kurt.

“I’m gonna break it,” Finn says apologetically to Kurt. “And it’s brand new.”

Kurt sets the glass on the bedside table, further away than the box, and then turns back towards Finn, sipping at his own glass of wine. “And why would that happen?” he teases.

“I’ll drop it because I’ll forget I’m holding it,” Finn explains. “And I’ll try to use both my hands.”

“Yes, I can see how that would create a problem,” Kurt says, giggling. “Don’t you think that would be a problem, Puck?”

Finn starts to move his hand on Puck’s cock, slower than Puck likes. “It’d be a problem depending on where he dropped it,” Puck agrees, moving his hips a little forward. “Fuck, Finn.”

“We don’t have a vacuum yet, so broken glass anywhere would be a problem,” Kurt says. He runs the back of his hand up Finn’s thigh, letting his fingertips just brush against Finn’s cock. “And if our floor were covered in glass, we could never leave the bedroom. It would be too dangerous.”

“Wait, this doesn’t sound like a problem any more,” Puck laughs. He leans forward, bringing his lips to Finn’s, and his hips rock a little further forward, towards Finn. Finn moves his hand faster on Puck’s cock, opening his mouth wider and letting Puck’s tongue slide against his. Finn stretches out his other hand, feeling for Kurt’s cock without breaking the kiss with Puck. 

Kurt intercepts Finn’s hand, then guides it to his cock before whispering in Finn’s ear. “Will you fuck me while Puck’s inside you?”

Finn’s glad he handed over his wine glass, because as it is, both his hands stop moving for a second and he makes a high–pitched noise right into Puck’s mouth, pulling away to say, “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I want to do that.”

He starts moving his hands again, turning his face towards Kurt to kiss him. Kurt’s fingers wrap around Finn’s cock then and he slides his hand up and down very slowly while he kisses Finn. 

Puck moves away for a moment, then presses up against Finn, closer than before. “Unlike Kurt,” he says cheerfully, “I do bite sometimes.” He starts nipping at Finn’s chest, sliding the palm of one hand down Finn’s back. 

Finn has run out of hands or he’d put one on the back of Puck’s head. Really, there’s almost too much going on at once, and he can’t quite keep up with Kurt and Puck’s hands and mouths on him. He says, “I think you two are gonna kill me on our first day in the apartment.”

“No,” Puck says. “We’re going for coma, not dead.” He nudges Finn’s side, the hand on Finn’s back going lower. “Don’t worry, you’ll wake up from the coma. Eventually.”

“Yeah, that’s reassuring,” Finn says, rolling his eyes. 

“Puck! Don’t scare him,” Kurt says to Puck. “Not the very first day in the apartment, at least. We need him for a third of the rent… and the sex.”

Puck laughs. “Maybe just some fainting then. Move a little,” he adds, talking to Finn, and the hand on Finn’s back is now more like the hand on Finn’s ass. Finn moves in the direction Puck nudges him.

“Even more reassured,” Finn says. “Maybe I’ll just go over here with Kurt. He’s in the non-fainting section of the bed.”

“It’s true. I promise not to make you faint.”

“See, Puck? _Kurt_ promises not to make me faint,” Finn says. 

“Traitor!” Puck says, looking at Kurt. 

“Maybe I’ll let Kurt fuck me and you can go, I dunno, cook something. Hang the shower curtain. Figure out how to use the egg chair,” Finn suggests. 

“Let’s not be too hasty!” Kurt says. “Puck, don’t go hang the curtain. I’ll take care of that later. You stay here and don’t hang anything up, please.”

Finn turns to Puck and grins. “You’re right. Total traitor.”

“Shifting with the winds or whatever. Did I mix my similes?” Puck grins back at Finn. “ _Move_ ,” he whines. 

Finn turns towards Kurt, pushing him back against the new pillows and leaning on top of him, shifting his body so Puck’s hand goes even lower, one slick finger trailing lightly down. Finn’s breath catches and he presses a kiss to the side of Kurt’s neck, putting one arm around him. 

Puck slowly pushes his finger inside Finn, stopping after a few seconds. “Okay?”

Finn nods his head against Kurt and breathes out. “Yeah, it’s okay,” he says quietly. 

“You feel good,” Puck says, his finger sliding the rest of the way in and moving slowly. “So tight, you’re going to be so tight around me.”

Finn puts his hand on Kurt’s cock again, moving it in time to Puck’s finger, and he keeps kissing Kurt’s neck, trying not to be nervous. It’s just the three of them, all alone together in their own apartment, and there’s nothing to be nervous about, really. Finn kisses Kurt’s jaw and chin, finally meeting Kurt’s lips with his. Kurt’s hand slides into Finn’s hair, the other hand resting on the side of Finn’s arm. 

Puck adds a second finger, moving them a little more quickly, his other hand resting on Finn’s side. Puck had put one finger inside Finn on Monday while blowing him, and Kurt had done the same on Tuesday while Finn was fucking Puck, but two fingers is still 100% more fingers than Finn’s had before, and he has to kiss Kurt hard and focus on relaxing. It feels good, but strange. But good.

“Now?” Puck asks quietly, the hand on Finn’s hip leaving and grabbing a condom from the box. 

“No, _now_ you hand me the lube,” Kurt says, holding out the hand that had been resting on Finn’s shoulder. Puck sort of whines and hands the bottle to Kurt, who gestures for Finn to hold out his hand. When Finn does, Kurt pours some lube into it, and then Finn pushes a finger inside of Kurt, moving it in and out while he kisses Kurt again, Puck’s fingers still moving inside of Finn. After a few minutes, Finn adds a second finger, and the kisses with Kurt get sloppier and more forceful. 

Puck’s fingers inside Finn feel good, the strangeness gone, and this time it’s Finn who says, “Now.”

There’s a ripping noise as Puck opens the condom and then rolls it on, his fingers pulling out of Finn before both of Puck’s hands are on Finn’s hip. “Fuck,” Puck breathes, moving forward and very slowly pushing into Finn. 

Finn exhales loudly and rests his forehead against Kurt’s head. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just that cocks don’t actually feel that much like fingers, so Finn has to make himself relax, closing his eyes and breathing. He feels Kurt place a condom package in his hand, which gives Finn something else to focus on along with relaxing. He tears the package open with his teeth and then Kurt takes it away from him, rolling the condom down Finn’s cock. Kurt pours more lube into Finn’s hand, and Finn slicks up his own cock, shifting under Puck and on top of Kurt until he has Kurt’s legs moved back.

Puck keeps moving slowly and evenly, his fingers on Finn’s hips tightening and digging in. “Damn,” Puck says, sounding appreciative. “Just, damn.” He stops, fully inside Finn, and runs one hand down Finn’s spine. “Good?”

“Yeah,” Finn breathes. “Really good.” As he answers Puck, he moves forward, pushing inside of Kurt. The feeling of being between the two of them, Puck inside him and Kurt under him, is intense and almost overwhelming. When Finn’s completely inside of Kurt, he has to stop moving for a second, just breathing and feeling Puck moving.

“Finn, don’t stop,” Kurt whines. “Finn, please.”

Finn moves his hips back, sliding partially out of Kurt, pushing himself back against Puck’s cock. He’s not really expecting it to feel as good as it does, and a low sound comes out of his mouth. He rocks his hips forward again, filling Kurt, and back again, being filled by Puck, and it’s pretty much _awesome_.

“Put your hand on Kurt,” Puck says, pushing in a little faster. Finn nods and wraps his still–slick hand around Kurt’s cock, trying to move his hand in time with the three of them moving and thrusting, and almost managing it.

Kurt moves his legs back further, so Finn shifts up and forward, slightly changing the angle of Puck inside him, and Finn suddenly hears himself crying out “fuck” and moving his hips back against Puck hard, because holy shit. “Puck, do it again,” Finn gasps. 

Puck chuckles, a little breathlessly, and pushes into Finn forcefully. “That?”

 _That_. “Fuck!” Finn’s body starts to shake a little. “Yeah.”

Kurt lifts his hips off the bed, wrapping his arm around Finn’s shoulders and pulling Finn down on top of him. Puck leans forward with Finn, his fingers digging into Finn’s side. Finn moves his hand faster on Kurt’s cock and thrusts into him harder, rocking his body between Kurt and Puck. 

Finn’s fingers tighten slightly on Kurt’s cock, and Kurt moans, and Puck echoes the moan from behind Finn. The combination of the sounds and the way everything feels is the kick that sends Finn over the edge. As he starts to come, he slams his cock into Kurt two or three more times, and then stills, feeling Kurt tighten around him. Finn’s hand keeps moving on Kurt’s cock and Kurt comes all over Finn’s hand just a few moments after.

Puck continues thrusting into Finn, his breathing harsh and loud, until he pushes in deep, his fingers almost convulsing, and he comes with a shudder, falling onto Finn’s back. Finn rolls to the side to keep the both of them from crushing Kurt and that makes Puck roll right off of Finn and onto the bed with a thump.

“Sorry,” Finn mumbles. He’s not really sorry—he feels too awesome and relaxed to be sorry—but it’s probably the polite thing to do, to apologize for dumping your boyfriend off your back and onto the bed after sex. Kurt giggles and puts his arm around Finn again.

“Good thing it’s a big bed,” Puck mutters.

“Should’ve let me get the huge one,” Finn says. “Then I could roll you further.”

Kurt giggles again. “That would be counter productive. The goal is enough space for us to all fit on the bed when we sleep, but not so much that we’re too far away to touch.” He runs his hand down Finn’s arm. “Do you feel faint?”

“Nope,” Finn says. “Kinda tired, mostly awesome.”

“Big one was like, four thousand, anyway,” Puck says. “No good.”

“I’m also fairly certain no apartment in New York that’s in our price range would be big enough to accommodate it,” Kurt points out. “Especially not if we’d like to actually be able to open the door.”

“An apartment that’s just bed,” Puck laughs. “I think I’ve seen that online.”

“You people and your facts,” Finn grumbles.

“Yes, reality is a harsh mistress,” Kurt agrees. “Speaking of… I think it’s time we did the big reveal, don’t you?”

“Do we need pants for the big reveal?” Finn asks.

“No pants,” Puck says decisively. “More wine, though.”

“Okay, then it’s definitely big reveal time,” Finn says. “I’ll get the wine.”

  


  
[ ](http://i.minus.com/iRbzaHdyDKZwS.png)  


The three of them settle in a circle—or triangle, as Finn insists—on the bed, each with a wine glass and either a piece of paper or a folder with their plans for each other inside.

“Who’s first?” Puck asks.

Finn bounces in place, but doesn’t say anything. Kurt shakes his head and says, “Finn, would you like to hear your plans first?”

“Yes!”

“Puck, you should tell him,” Kurt says, handing Puck the blue folder.

“Start with the big goal or the steps, do you think?” Puck grins. “I know, we should tell each other a few of the steps and make each other guess!” He flips open the folder. “Okay, Finn. This summer, one of the things you have to do is go out to the shooting range in Ada.”

Finn frowns. “Wait, I thought the whole point of this was that I _wasn’t_ going to have to join the Army.”

“Didn’t say anything about landmines. Your ironing will eventually come in handy, though. There’s a few tests you have to take, along the way. Any guesses?”

“Does it have something to do with Kurt’s uniform fetish?” Finn asks.

“It’s not a _fetish_!” Kurt insists. “It’s a predilection!”

“Dude,” Finn says. “It’s totally a fetish.”

“It is,” Puck agrees, “and yeah, it does.”

“Awesome!” Finn says. “I don’t have to be a doctor or something, right? ’Cause I don’t think that would be a really good plan. Wait, but why would a doctor need to go to a firing range? Okay, never mind about the doctor thing. Just ignore me and keep talking.”

“Yeah, no doctor. No blood at all, we ruled out EMT,” Puck laughs. “You _do_ have to actually take some college classes, though.”

Finn looks dubious. “But I didn’t get into college.”

“Not acting classes, dumbass.”

“Okay, okay, then just tell me already!” Finn says, flopping back onto the mattress. “I’m dying of suspense. Kurt, this is the fainting part, I think! I’m going to faint and die.”

“You aren’t going to do either. Quit whining and listen to Puck.”

Puck closes the folder and tosses it in front of Finn. “New York’s finest, I think is the phrase.”

Finn opens the folder and looks inside. “Holy shit, you want me to be a cop?” He sits up and looks at Kurt. “This is definitely because of the uniform fetish.”

“No, it’s because of your clearly delineated sense of right and wrong,” Kurt says, a bit haughtily. 

“And the uniform fetish,” Finn says.

“ _Fine_. A little bit the uniform fetish,” Kurt admits. “But only a little bit. Are you happy with the plan?”

Finn looks at the folder again, his face serious, nodding his head as he reads. “Yeah,” he says finally. “I am. I never would have thought of it for myself, but I think this sounds really cool, you guys. Thanks!” He leans across the bed to kiss first Puck and then Kurt. “Good job.”

Puck grins. “Awesome. My turn?”

“I think so,” Kurt says. “Finn, do you want to, or shall I?”

“You do it. I want to tell you yours, and everybody should get a turn to big reveal somebody else.”

Kurt nods and accepts the notepad that Finn hands him. “Well, Puck. Your first step is inspired by your one and only move, or rather, by your former one and only move.”

“I’d be a little worried if it was inspired by the second one,” Puck says, shrugging. 

“No, mud wrestling isn’t a viable career option. Hobby, yes. Career, no,” Kurt agrees. “You will spend four consecutive Saturdays in Toledo, attending bartending school. I’m afraid you’ll have to step up your game from the wine coolers.” He untucks the business card from where it’s stuck inside the notepad. “And you are to call this gentleman to schedule your lessons at times most convenient to you. You won’t get very far as a professional musician without at least some formal training and the ability to read sheet music as well as tablature.”

Puck takes the card and looks a little stunned. “Uh. Okay.” He looks up and purses his lips. “Don’t you have to be twenty-one? For bartending?”

“Not in New York!” Finn says. “We checked. And anyway, I guess now I can’t have you do anything illegal,” he adds lifting the blue folder.

Puck laughs. “I’ll have to stay on the straight and narrow, I guess.”

“Well, the narrow, anyway,” Kurt agrees. “If you’ll look at the list, you’ll see that we also want you to at least take a few courses at SAE in New York. That way, you could get in at a studio, do some work there, and have a few more options.”

“Do you like it?” Finn asks. “We thought you’d be able to find some bars or clubs to play at, too, once we’re in the city.”

“Yeah,” Puck says almost softly, nodding. “I do.”

“Awesome,” Finn says. “You’re going to be awesome at all that stuff.”

“I guess that means it’s my turn now?” Kurt asks. “Oh please god, tell me it’s not catering.”

“It’s not catering,” Finn replies. “We kinda stuck with your original plan, actually.”

“Except you don’t need to have other people lecture you on how to do it,” Puck pipes up. 

“Yeah, they can spend all those years taking classes, but you’re going to go right out there and start auditioning for stuff,” Finn says. “You have to get those whatchacallem pictures. Head pictures.”

“Headshots?” Kurt asks.

“No, that’s how you kill zombies,” Finn says, shaking his head. “This is pictures of your head.”

“Dude,” Puck says, laughing. “They’re called headshots.”

“Well,” Finn answers, “I still don’t think that sounds right. But, anyway, you need to get some of those. We wrote down a few places and you can go to whichever one that you like their pictures best. The websites are on there.” He hands Kurt a sheet of notebook paper with the steps to his plan on it. “But you have to practice at home, too. There’s some things on the paper that you have to practice.”

“First year, you don’t have to worry about working. Just audition and practice and all of that,” Puck adds. “Like we said, we’ll all kind of trade off or whatever as we need.”

“But we know you can do it. You have star quality,” Finn says. “I only date people with star quality, so, that means you. We believe in you and we think that school was dumb, but you’re gonna do way better than any of those assholes.”

“Plus, by the time four years is up, you’ll have actually been on stage and done a hell of a lot more auditions.”

“This is amazing, you two,” Kurt says, feeling his eyes starting to tear. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Other people messed up your dream,” Finn explains. “So we’re fixing it. You didn’t need a different dream, you just needed a better way to do it.”

“You’re the one holding us screw-ups together,” Puck says self-deprecatingly. “We’re still all a bit of a mess, but at least we’re a mess that’s going somewhere, now.”

“Yes, we are,” Kurt agrees. “Somewhere better.”

  


Epilogue: 3 years later

Puck recognizes their voices before he sees their faces. 

“You were so right!” Rachel still has the same forced giggle. “We needed a night out before the auditions for the autumn show on Tuesday.”

“It’s important to give yourself a break,” Blaine responds, and he still sounds just as pompous and self-important as ever. “Then tomorrow, back to work!”

Puck frowns to himself and turns his back to the rest of the bar. “Jimmy, did you serve these guys?” he asks, motioning down the bar in their direction.

“Yeah, they had IDs, looked valid,” Jimmy says, shrugging. “There a problem?”

“They’re not twenty-one,” Puck says, still frowning. “Ask to see their IDs again.”

“Want me to hang on to ’em until your officer gets here?”

Puck grins. “Yep.” When Jimmy walks towards Rachel and Blaine, Puck pulls out his phone and calls Finn. 

“Hey babe,” Finn says by way of greeting. “How many we got tonight and are they better quality than last time?”

“Two, and so good, wouldn’t have realized without some insider information.”

“Somebody you know?”

“Two people we both know, actually,” Puck says. “But so far they haven’t recognized me.” 

“You going to tell me who so I can be prepared or is it a surprise?” Finn asks. 

“Lima’s own self-absorbed douche club,” Puck snorts. “Didn’t expect to see _both_ of my boyfriends’ exes.”

“Seriously? I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty!” Finn says. “Love you, babe.”

“Love you,” Puck echoes before ending the call, then turning back to Jimmy. “Get ’em?”

“Sure did,” Jimmy says, handing over the IDs. “Higher quality than usual. Must have cost a fuckton.”

“Well, ‘Preston’ has a shitload of money,” Puck says, laughing at the IDs. “Aww, cute, they’re brother and sister according to this! ‘Sabine’ and ‘Preston’.”

“Yeah, twins, based on the birthdays. Not really related?”

“Nope. ‘Sabine’ is Finn’s high school ex. ‘Preston’ is Kurt’s,” Puck says, smirking. “Both twenty.”

“Well, hell. It’s like a reunion. Your officer’s gonna have fun with this one,” Jimmy says, shaking his head as he grins. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Twelve minutes later, Finn walks in, and Puck leans on the bar, grinning. “Well, good evening, Officer,” he calls. 

“So, what seems to be the problem tonight?” Finn asks, putting on his best cop voice and face. “You got those IDs?” He says it loudly enough for Rachel and Blaine to hear him and turn.

“Our dear friends, the twins Preston and Sabine Richmond,” Puck says mockingly. “Would you like me to introduce you?”

“Yeah, why don’t you do that?” Finn says, walking down the bar to where Blaine and Rachel are seated. Blaine’s eyes widen comically, and Rachel’s do the same. It almost looks choreographed.

“Preston. Sabine.” Puck stops in front of them and dangles their IDs in the air. “Don’t pass your fakes when the bartender knows how old you really are.” He smirks. “Now turn around and listen to the nice officer.”

Blaine and Rachel both swivel their barstools to face Finn, who stands with his hands on his hips. “Now, I had always been under the impression that the two of you were supposed to be smart,” Finn says. “Did the stupid happen recently or was it there the whole time and I just never noticed?”

“Finn!” Rachel half–squeals. “You, you’re.” She stops and then beams at him. “You look so good!”

“Ma’am, would you please show me your _real_ ID,” Finn says, ignoring Rachel’s attempts to flirt. “You, too… _sir_ ,” he adds, addressing Blaine.

“Finn, it’s great to see you again!” Blaine exclaims, though the look on his face says exactly the opposite. “Now, you know I wasn’t really that much younger than Kurt, so that’s my—”

“Yeah, no,” Finn says, cutting him off. “You’re younger than Rachel and _she_ isn’t twenty-one yet, either. You two do realize trying to pass a fake ID is illegal, right?”

“It’s not— it’s not a big deal,” Rachel protests. “Right? And they still served—” she turns around to gesture at the counter, but while their attention was on Finn, Puck took their alcohol, poured it out, and set a Coke Zero and a Sprite on the counter instead. He’s pretty sure they both hate Sprite and diet drinks, so he figures that’s an extra win. 

“All I see’s a couple of pops,” Finn points out, “and two kids with very good fake IDs that I oughta be arresting right now.” Rachel blanches and Blaine turns bright red. “Can either of you give me a good reason not to?”

“We won’t do it again!” Blaine says, looking frantic. “I swear, this is the first time we’ve ever used them! I’ve never broken the law before, please, I don’t want a criminal record, is there anything—”

“Calm down, dumbass,” Finn sighs. “Puck, you want to take care of those IDs for me?”

“Sure, babe,” Puck answers, pulling out the scissors they keep under the bar for just such occasions, cutting up ‘Preston’ and ‘Sabine’ before tossing the slivers in the trash. “All done.”

“But… but…" Blaine starts to protest, but Rachel puts her hand on his arm and hisses “shhh!”

“Yeah, those things looked expensive,” Finn says, nodding in Blaine’s direction, then turning back to Puck. “I was able to swap shifts with McLaughlin, so I’ve got tomorrow off for Kurt’s show. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. Rourke keeps giving me shit, ’cause I won’t stop talking about it.”

“Kurt’s in a show?” Blaine’s voice intrudes into their conversation.

“Rourke always gives you shit,” Puck laughs, ignoring Blaine. “Yeah, I want to see this costume he won’t tell us about.”

“He just gives me shit because he’s jealous that my boyfriends are so hot,” Finn says, leaning across the bar to give Puck a quick kiss. “And yeah, Kurt was complaining about the hair style. Apparently Marty gets the kickass pompadour, but George has to wear it slicked, and Kurt says it’s not flattering with his hairline.”

“Wait, Kurt’s in _Back to the Future_?!” Blaine asks, and Rachel gasps loudly and dramatically.

“But that, that’s on Broadway!” she says, almost like she’s protesting. “That’s not possible! How?”

Finally, Finn turns towards Rachel. “It’s not his first show,” he says. “It’s just his biggest role.”

“Are you saying he’s playing _George_ in _Back to the Future_?” Blaine asks, like he can’t quite understand what he’s hearing. “That’s the second largest male role!”

“So far,” Puck says to Finn. “Biggest role so far.” He turns to Blaine and shakes his head. “Good to know you pay some attention to Broadway, I guess.”

“But… _how_?” Blaine asks, incredulously. “Did he go to a different performing arts school? I know he never attended NYADA. He didn’t even apply again!”

“Yeah, ’cause NYADA is the only way to get on Broadway.” Puck snorts. “I think they’re putting down our boyfriend, babe.”

Blaine and Rachel’s mouths both drop open and Finn frowns. “I think you’re right. Now, we could be wrong, on account of how we aren’t a brain trust.”

“Right.” Puck nods solemnly. “After all, there’s no way a role on Broadway, in a show that might even get Tony nominations, could compare to a summer of disco and four years of lectures.”

“It’s too bad Kurt was dumb and let us make plans for him, huh?” Finn says. “I’ve gotta get back out there, babe. Call me if any other idiots come in here with fake IDs.” He turns towards Rachel and Blaine again, looking stern. “I suggest you kids get back to your fancy side of town and think long and hard about your life choices.”

“Be safe,” Puck says to Finn. “See you at home.” 

“Always,” Finn says, leaning across the bar to kiss Puck again. “You and Kurt keep the bed warm for me if I’m in late.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Puck grins, watching Finn leave. Kurt may be the one with the uniform fetish, but that doesn’t mean Puck can’t appreciate it. He turns to Blaine and Rachel and lets his grin fade. “I’d say you should come see the show, but it’s sold out. For months.”

“You and Finn?” Rachel blurts.

“You and _Kurt_?” Blaine says.

“You and Finn _and_ Kurt?” Rachel asks, sounding more incredulous with each word. 

“Not really any of your business,” Puck replies, “but yes.”

“Since when?” Rachel asks, still looking dumbfounded.

“Pretty much right after Finn put you on a train,” Puck shrugs. 

Rachel’s face falls, but Blaine scowls. “But Kurt and I were still together then.”

“Yeah, we kinda had to add him to make it all work.” Puck smiles a little too nicely. “Guess you could say we all upgraded.”

Blaine takes Rachel by the arm. “I think we should go now, Rachel. This whole thing is ridiculous. Anyway, we have class tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell Kurt you two said to break a leg!” Puck calls after them, laughing to himself.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Linchpin Art Masterpost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/480363) by [Narya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya/pseuds/Narya)




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